Latest News | Telcos Eyeing Share of Lucrative Cloud, Data Center Market: Report

New Delhi, Aug 27 (PTI) After competing on mobile services battleground, telecom companies such as Jio and Bharti are keen to get a slice of the lucrative cloud and data center (DC) market, where they have partnered with global players and are looking to offer value-add services, according to a report.

India is turning out to be one of the favorite markets for the cloud ecosystem -- Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service -- given big talent pool, cost arbitrage and the nascent domestic market, said the report by BofA Securities titled `Telco wars: Now to Cloud/DCs'.

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"Telcos Jio/Bharti have partnered with Microsoft (MS)/Amazon (respectively). While the focus of the two partnerships is different as both telcos offer connectivity to enterprise, they are looking to offer value-add services like data center, cyber security etc through these tie-ups," it said.

Indian businesses are increasingly adopting cloud computing services and COVID-19 is accelerating this adoption. Like most markets, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are aggressively competing with each other to win cloud customers in India, it said.

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Simply put, Cloud computing is providing storage and computational power to consumers/businesses from remote data centers via the internet.

"After competing on the mobile front, telcos Jio and Bharti are keen to get a pie of the lucrative Cloud/DC market and have tied-up with Azure/AWS (Amazon Web Services) respectively," BofA Securities note said.

Jio's partnership is exclusively to target the SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) and Bharti's partnership focuses on co-creating India specific customised products for Indian enterprises, it said.

"Both have big ambitions in DC expansion," the report said and cited the recent move by Bharti Airtel to sell about 25 per cent stake in its data centre business, Nxtra, to Carlyle Group.

The ensuing data protection bill may act as a catalyst as it would lead to storing data of Indians in the country by the foreign companies.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)