Netmagic takes on Microsoft, IBM & Amazon in data centre services in India

IT infrastructure and data centre services provider Netmagic, an NTT Communications firm, is gearing up its offering in the Indian market as global biggies like Microsoft, IBM and Amazon set up their data centres in the country.

With the company's largest data centre (DC) going live by the end of this month in Mumbai, Netmagic will have a total DC space of 600,000 sq.ft spread across nine DCs.

"No other firm in India has the depth of experience that we have in the country. All three technology majors have announced their plans to launch a DC by the end of this year. So competition is no longer with domestic players anymore," said Sharad Sanghi, MD & CEO, Netmagic.

According to a Gartner report, India will be the second largest market for DC infrastructure and the second fastest growing market in Asia-Pacific in 2015.

Sanghi said that the company has been growing at over 30% and "we are confident that we will grow 35%-40% on a year-on-year basis," he added. The company is expected to close revenue at Rs 445 crore for FY16.

Sanghi also added that with NTT Communications coming on board, the company is now in a better shape not only to target the global markets but also to fight with global giants. "NTT globally has been transforming its strategy by acquiring firms. With these acquisitions, NTT Com is emerging as a player providing end-to-end services. These could be managed services, coloaction and infrastructure services and cloud business," he added.

By acquiring Netmagic, NTT has started to leverage India's low-cost location for software development. At present, a team of 150 people in India manage NTT's global DCs. "Similarly, global customers looking for a presence in India are using Netmagic's DCs. In addition to the team of 150 people, we have a 50-member team that has been developing the global cloud platform. We will soon be merging our cloud platform to be part of the global platform and the work will be done from our Pune centre," added Sanghi.

Other than presence in the international market with NTT Communication, Netmagic has access to funds for its capital-intensive business. NTT Communications in 2014 raised its stake in the company from 73% to 81% and infused funds of Rs 575 crore, which has been used for building the company's ninth and largest DC. More importantly, revenue from NTT Communications is now 10% of the total revenue for the company.

Sanghi is also confident that going ahead, they will be in a better position to enter the remote infrastructure management (RIM) services. "With NTT's presence in almost every geographical region, we will tap the RIM segment in international markets. In this space, we will be competing with Indian IT players as well," said Sanghi.

Netmagic is also among the few players in the Indian DC space that started offering cloud services as early as 2009. Today, it has over 350 customers in the cloud space. Overall, the company has a customer base of 1,500 across its offerings.