British telecoms giant Cable & Wireless said it will strengthen its partnership agreements and services capabilities in China, in order to maintain strong business growth in the country.
Cable & Wireless Worldwide is a business communications services unit of British telecom operator Cable & Wireless plc. Mike Powell, vice president of service delivery of Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which is the business communications services unit of the British firm, told China Daily in an exclusive interview that the company's business performance on the mainland drove its top-line business in Asia Pacific to grow more than 40 percent last year.
"A key part of our strategy is driving strategic bilateral partnerships in the territories that we are growing in," Powell said.
Cable & Wireless Worldwide, which offers communications services to large enterprises across Asia, Europe and the United States, currently has a partnership with China Unicom and China Telecom, two major telecom operators on the mainland.
The company's partnership with China Unicom allows it to access to three Points-of-Presence networks in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, while the two network-to-network interface agreements with China Telecom enable it to connect customers throughout the mainland.
"We see tremendous opportunities in China, so those partnerships will become more important to us," Powell said.
Apart from its current partnerships with China Unicom and China Telecom, Powell said the company will continue to seek partnerships with other organizations to increase its customer numbers.
He said Cable & Wireless Worldwide is a "non-threatening partner" to local telecom operators, as the company never goes head-to-head with them in the local markets.
Instead of providing local telecommunication services, Cable & Wireless Worldwide mainly offers network services to large enterprise, reseller and carrier customers.
The London-based company also aims to bring international customers to the local networks, as well as to facilitate local telecom operators to reach into global markets.
Powell said the global demand for network services is expanding, as companies around the world continue to grow their businesses outside of their core operating environments and move into the new markets, with the mainland and India being the top two regions for expansion.
Companies based on the mainland, meanwhile, are also stepping into the markets in Europe and emerging Asia, including Laos and Cambodia.
"The further and further you decentralize your business across the globe, the more a network starts to become a very critical backbone to your organization," Powell said.
He added that companies are also eager to improve their efficiency and cost-saving capabilities, and they are particularly concerned about the management of telecom application performance and expenditure.
To better capture market opportunities in the Asia Pacific region, Cable & Wireless has invested $200 million in constructing networks and infrastructure in the region over the past two years.
"We are committed to continue investing in this market. We see Asia Pacific, of which China makes up a key component, being a large part of our growth in the future," Powell said.
The company also expects to find significant business opportunity in Asia in the near term, as multi-national companies gradually grow outside of their domestic markets and expand their operations in Asia, particularly in China and India.
"The kinds of services, the capabilities and the ongoing investment that we need to make are likely to be driven by these kinds of customers," Powell said.
