Satyam to widen footprint in Asia Pacific

Bangalore, Sep 14 (UNI) IT major Satyam Computers, which has a major presence in the Asia Pacific and African countries, will further increase its footprint by setting up new development centres in China, Australia and Japan.

Briefing newspersons here about the company's future plans, its Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific, Midle East, India and Africa operations Virender Agarwal said the company had posted 16.5 per cent growth in Asia Pacific and would scale it up to 20 per cent in three years.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Satyam had the largest office space in Australia. It had offices in Thailand, Australia, Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia and South Africa.

''We are looking at increasing our knowledge capability with a major thrust in the field of telecom, banking and financial services. Our knowledge work is now mainly being carried out from China and Malaysia. Australia, which opened up its market for the IT sector two years ago, has seen fast growth for Satyam Computers,'' Mr Agarwal said.

The Hyderabad-based company had 550 staff in Australia, 40 per cent of them locals. Japan was expected to open up its market for the entry of IT majors later this year and the company was gearing up to increase its presence there.

In the Middle East, Satyam had the largest presence among all Indian IT companies. After opening its head office in Dubai, it had spread to Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Its main strategy in the Middle East was bidding and project execution with BEE companies, he said.

The company had found Malaysia to be the best place for setting up its multi-lingual centre where sofware development for Japanese, Thailand and Chinese companies were being taken up. ''This is the best place to improve our language capabilities. The other advantage is that Malaysia has signed FTA with the United States and offers great potential to do business with US-based companies,'' he added.

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