ST Telemedia expands data center business in India and Singapore
Singapore Technologies (ST) Telemedia and Tata Communications have entered into a strategic partnership to expand their joint data center business in India and Singapore.
ST Telemedia has officially acquired a 74% majority stake in Tata Communications' while the company continues to hold the remaining 26% stake.
The joint agreement includes Tata Communications' 14 data centers in key cities across India and its three Singapore facilities. The data centers currently service a diverse customer base, including blue chip enterprises in Asia, eCommerce platforms and global multi-national corporations. Both parties will work in partnership to ensure service continuity for customers and employee engagement, according to a statement.
With this acquisition, ST Telemedia will expand its global data center network to span four geographies, including bases in two of Asia's largest growth markets - India and China.
Tata Communications says it will retain a stake in the colocation market in these markets, while also developing and introducing its advanced managed services portfolio (including IP, cloud enablement and unified communications services), and continuing to invest in its strategic partnerships globally.
Vinod Kumar, Tata Communications managing director and CEO, says, "Today marks a milestone moment in Tata Communications' evolution. We have been proud of the tremendous growth of our data center subsidiary over a relatively short time. This new joint venture partnership will now allow us to hone our strategic focus on advanced services within the data center that enable digital transformation for our customers, in addition to infrastructure services."
"Our new partnership also gives us the opportunity to redeploy capital behind other areas of our business, to further broaden the portfolio of services we can offer to meet our customers' current and future requirements," he says.
Sio Tat Hiang, executive director of ST Telemedia, says, "This partnership marks another key milestone in STT GDC's growth. Since ST Telemedia's initial investment in the data center business in mid-2014, we have made remarkable progress in building a formidable data center footprint internationally with strategic presence in key economic hubs to capture industry demand. The latest addition of India to the STT GDC network will be a major impetus to advance the company's ambition to be a significant global data center service provider.
"We are pleased to partner with an established company like Tata Communications, to pursue opportunities in the growing data center market.
In 2014, the Indian data center business of Tata Communications Limited was transferred to its wholly-owned subsidiary Tata Communications Data Centers Private Ltd (TCDC) through a High Court approved process. Today, TCDC owns and operates a total of 14 data centers, including facilities in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune.
Rangu Salgame, CEO of growth ventures and service provider group at Tata Communications, added: "We're delighted to be partnering with ST Telemedia to create this exciting joint venture, bringing together two great brands. Our companies share a very similar ethos and set of values: both organisations are long term investors, focusing on performance, value and growth. Both organisations also share an impeccable commitment to customer service excellence.
"Looking ahead, I am confident that our customers can expect the same high levels of service as they receive today and a partner who will bring additional offerings to enable their cloud and eCommerce growth. It is this aligned commitment to our customers that makes this strategic partnership so compelling.
Bruno Lopez, CEO of ST Telemedia, says, "We are excited about this alliance and the opportunities it brings to stakeholders of both partners. With this investment, STT GDC is well positioned to become one of the largest Asian-headquartered data center companies with significant platforms in key markets where we continue to see strong growth.
"STT GDC will focus on leveraging the complementary strengths and experience of this partnership to deliver superior solutions to meet our customers' data center, cloud and managed services requirements as their businesses grow in India, Singapore and beyond.
