Huawei expects India revenues to double

NEW DELHI: Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei said its enterprise business has been growing faster than its services business in India and that it expects revenue in the country to double over the previous year as it focuses on sectors such as banking and finance, power, infrastructure and government.

“For the Enterprise Business Group, we are witnessing much higher growth in India compared to the global growth rate. The enterprise growth has been much faster than the carrier business,” Huawei India CEO Jay Chen told ET.

The growth is primarily being fuelled by verticals such as BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), government (smart and safe city programmes) and over-the-top players as well as commercial market opportunities in India. The vendor has acquired more than 500 customers in the segment in five years since launching its enterprise business in India.

Globally, Huawei’s revenue from enterprise business grew 47.3% year-on-year to $5.9 billion in 2016 calender year.

“Irrespective of how other businesses perform, the enterprise business will definitely grow for sure,” said Chen.

The vendor has been strengthening its teams and increasing the manpower to fuel this growth. It is working with national distributors such as Reddington, and it has tied up with global system integrators for the Indian market.

“Moving forward, we are going ahead towards the commercial market, which is retailing,” Chen said.

The company is working with Tech Mahindra and Honeywell to tap into smart city opportunities, he said.

Chen said that the company is working on some smart and safe city projects in India, and it will be starting deployment soon. Huawei is also betting big on e-commerce as a lot of players are setting up huge data centres to drive business growth.

The chief executive said that Huawei is building a complete ecosystem of applications, technology and partners to tap into the enterprise segment in the country. Alongside, it is looking to build a robust industry ecosystem by investing in industry alliances, business alliances, open source communities and developer platforms.