Hitachi gears up to tap storage demand

  Kevin Eggleston, senior vice president and general manager of Asia-Pacific, Hitachi Data Systems, said that about 16 per cent of Hitachi Data Systems revenues are currently from Asia-Pacific.
“Asia is a fast-growing market. All of our locations around the world are growing at a fast pace. Our data systems business grew 16 per cent in South America in the fourth quarter last year and by about 10 per cent in Europe. In Asia-Pacific, we grew by 18 per cent in the fourth quarter last year, which is twice the pace of the market,” said Eggleston.
He said Hitachi Data Systems is the world leader in storage virtualisation. The company also expects Asia-Pacific to be the fastest-growing market, particularly India, China, Asean, Korea and Australia.
“We expect our revenue contribution from the Asia-Pacific region to increase significantly to 20 per cent in the next five years,” said Eggleston.
Eggleston said Hitachi Data Systems is part of the US$100-billion (Bt3 trillion) Hitachi Group of Companies with headquarters in Silicon Valley, US.
He said the company has focused on the $3.5 billion to $4 billion data-storage business.
The Hitachi Group employs about 360,000 people around the world. About 7,000 of them are with Hitachi Data Systems and about 900 are based in Asia-Pacific.
“We have served thousands of clients globally. The markets we have focused on are telephone companies, banks, governments, and manufacturers, which are the largest consumers of data storage. However, the fastest-growing industry is healthcare, driven by many electronic healthcare initiatives such as digital imaging used in hospitals, as well as the media and entertainment industry,” said Eggleston.
Eggleston, who is in charge of Hitachi Data Systems in Asia-Pacific, except Japan, said the company set up its Bangkok operations in 2004.
“We have been in the data-storage business in Asia for 20 years. We’re now the fastest-growing company in our business in Asia-Pacific as well as Thailand,” he said.
Hubert Yoshida, vice president and chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, said that the major driving factors for growth of the data-storage market in Asia-Pacific are economic growth in the region, which encourages governments to invest more money in IT infrastructure to provide better service to their citizens.
He added that many businesses such as banks and telephone companies are growing faster in Asia-Pacific and they need more infrastructure as well.
In Thailand, Hitachi Data Systems grew by 42 per cent year on year last year.
Yoshida said that the majority of the world’s population lives in Asia. Those countries need to build IT-based infrastructure to support that huge population.