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Category: Telecom

Retail News Asia is committed to providing both local and global retailers with the latest Telecom & Telco news throughout the Asian market. This on a daily base.

  • Ericsson chairman to step down

    Ericsson chairman to step down

    Ericsson chairman Leif Johansson (pictured) will step down from his position as the struggling Swedish telecoms equipment vendor enters a new phase.

    Johansson, who has been serving as chairman of the company since 2011, has informed the company that he will not make himself available for re-election at the shareholder’s AGM in 2018, according to a company statement released on July 5.

    Ericsson, facing increasing competition from Huawei and Nokia, has been struggling to return to profitability.

    Johansson didn’t explain explicitly why he had chosen to step down, saying only the company has a new strategy and there had been changes in ownership

    But according to FT, the move was prompted by corporate activist investor Cevian Capital, led by Christer Gardell, which recently acquired 5.6% stake in Ericsson and has been pushing for further change.

    Commenting on his decision, Johansson said, “Börje Ekholm assumed the position as CEO in the beginning of the year and during the first quarter the company presented a new, more focused, business strategy. This strategy, which is supported by the board and the major owners, creates a solid foundation for realizing Ericsson’s full potential”.

    “The company now enters a new phase, with focus on execution, and we also have a new ownership constellation. It is natural to let the owners jointly propose a chairman and well ahead of this I want to announce that I will not be available for a next term,” he added.

    The company said its nomination committee has initiated a search for a replacement.

    Nokia appoints Gregory Lee to head technology arm

    Nokia has appointed Gregory Lee (pictured) as president of Nokia Technologies and a member of the company’s Group Leadership team, with immediate effect.

    Lee joins Nokia after a 13-year career at Samsung Electronics, where he most recently served as president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America. In this capacity, Lee led all of Samsung’s businesses for North America, managing a portfolio of products including mobile phones and consumer electronics, as well as those in new market segments such as digital health, virtual reality devices and digital content.

    Rajeev Suri, president and chief executive officer of Nokia, said the company has chosen “the right leader to take Nokia Technologies forward at a time of renewed excitement about the Nokia brand around the world.”

    “Gregory’s passion for innovation and operational excellence, along with his proven ability to build and lead global consumer technology businesses, make him well suited to advance Nokia’s efforts in virtual reality, digital health and beyond.”

    Lee will be based in California, reporting to Suri.

    Wendy Johnstone joins Microsoft APAC team
    Microsoft has appointed Wendy Johnstone as marketing and operations lead for Asia Pacific, effective from July 3. Based in Singapore, Johnstone is in charge of all marketing activities and operations for Microsoft in the region.

    Johnstone joins Microsoft from Salesforce, where she was most recently vice president of marketing for Asia Pacific.

    She brings to the table over 20 years of experience and had held numerous senior marketing leadership positions at Salesforce, EMC and IBM.

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  • Unicom, Ericsson, Qualcomm demo VoLTE over Cat-M1

    Unicom, Ericsson, Qualcomm demo VoLTE over Cat-M1

    China Unicom, Ericsson and Qualcomm have completed the first demonstration of LTE Cat-M1 Voice over LTE use cases.

    The demonstrations at last week’s Mobile World Congress Shanghai involved providing connectivity for a fire alarm trigger panel and a GPS emergency tracking device.

    The demos were conducted using Unicom’s spectrum, Ericsson’s IoT and VoLTE capable network infrastructure and IoT devices equipped with Qualcomm multimode IoT modems.

    Adding VoLTE support to Cat-M1 allows IoT devices based on the cellular IoT technology to make voice calls as well as sending data.

    The demonstrated showed that emergency communications devices can be designed or retrofitted to  support wireless connectivity, supporting voice communication between the devices and emergency centers.

    In the case of the fire alarm trigger panels, people triggering an alarm were able to describe the situation to first responders and get immediate guidance.

    The GPS emergency tracking device demonstration meanwhile showcased the ability of such devices to send GPS location data while enabling VoLTE calls for coordinated emergency response.

    “China Unicom aims to drive the development of the IoT and accelerate cellular network development and large-scale business implementation by constructing the leading 4G FDD network,” Unicom executive director and senior vice president Guanglu Shao said.

    “We launched NB-IoT on a pre-commercial basis on May 12 in Shanghai. This cooperation on eMTC with Ericsson and Qualcomm is a new venture intended to boost social intelligence and the Internet of Everything through wide cooperation and the construction of leading networks.”

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  • Nutanix launches OS for hybrid cloud environments

    Nutanix launches OS for hybrid cloud environments

    Nutanix has revealed that that the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS will be delivered as a full software stack with new multi-cloud capabilities in Nutanix Calm and a new cloud service called Nutanix Xi Cloud Services.

    The new offerings, announced at its .NEXT Conference 2017, are designed to allow customers to use Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Software throughout their multi-cloud deployments, including on-premises with platforms from IBM, Dell EMC, Lenovo, Cisco and HPE, in the cloud via AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Azure, or natively.

    Delivered as software, the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS supports a variety of hardware platforms, form factors and third-party vendors, ensuring that a single software fabric with unified management can run across all enterprise environments.

    The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS extends beyond Nutanix-branded appliances, OEM offerings from Dell EMC and Lenovo and systems from partner IBM to flexible subscriptions and enterprise license agreements (ELAs) on Cisco and HPE platforms.

    For consumption as a service, IT leaders will be able to leverage Nutanix software as a native cloud-delivered solution via Xi Cloud Services.

    Xi Cloud Services will allow customers to provision and consume Nutanix infrastructure on demand as a native extension of the enterprise data center.

    The first available Xi Cloud Service will enable Nutanix customers to set up, manage and test a complete cloud-based DR service in just minutes. Using the same Prism management interface, Nutanix customers can instantly protect their applications and data inline with existing workflows as part of their routine IT operations.

    Nutanix will partner with strategic cloud providers to deliver Xi Cloud Services globally, and to meet the data provenance requirements governing multiple industries and use cases.

    Building and operating a multi-cloud architecture requires that applications can be easily defined, instantiated and scaled independent of the cloud environment. Nutanix Calm abstracts application environments from the underlying infrastructure and recommends the right cloud for the right workload while harmonizing cloud operations.

    Nutanix Calm will allow applications to be defined via easy-to-use blueprints, which can be provisioned, managed and scaled into different cloud environments. The solution includes a powerful, integrated marketplace so that application designs can be shared across the organization to speed the time to production for new business initiatives.

    The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS is now available as a software-only offering for popular platforms from Cisco and HPE. Nutanix Calm is planned to be available for sale by calendar Q4 2017. Nutanix Xi Cloud Services for disaster recovery are planned to be offered for early access by calendar Q1 2018.

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  • India’s big data market set to hit $16b by 2025

    India’s big data market set to hit $16b by 2025

    India’s big data analytics sector is set to record impressive growth in the coming years, WNS Global Services has predicted.

    The sector is expected to witness eight-fold growth to reach $16 billion by 2025 from the current $2 billion, according to industry experts. The sector is also looking at registering compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26% over next five years.

    India is currently among top 10 big data analytics markets in the world.

    “The government, industry and academia can collaborate to build an ecosystem to generate sustainable solutions by harnessing the power of big data and digital innovation,” said WNS Global Services Group CEO Keshav Murugesh.

    “The combined power of harnessing big data and digital solutions can drive tremendous results in improving the citizen experience, implementation efficiency and boosting the nation’s economy.”

    Murugesh was speaking at the Emerging Worlds Conference workshop organised by Indian School of Design and Innovation (ISDI) in collaboration with MIT Media Labs. “India is a diversified country with a wide array of challenges, and it is pertinent that we as citizens of this country, innovate to find effective solutions that can make a difference to the billion lives that live here,” he said.

    “If big data can be put to cutting-edge use for our corporations and clients, it can very well be a catalyst for the economy and the country.”

    The workshop brought together industry leaders, technical experts, data scientists, innovators, academic institutions, implementation collaborators and progressive corporate collaborators to source national challenges and potential solutions.

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  • Pakistan’s Jazz secures 4G license

    Pakistan’s Jazz secures 4G license

    Pakistani mobile operator Jazz has formally secured its 4G license after submitting the sole bid for a 10 MHz block of 1800-MHz spectrum in May.

    The license was officially awarded to the company during a ceremony on Friday.

    Jazz has become Pakisan’s third operator to be granted a 4G license, after China Mobile’s Zong and Warid Telecom.

    Jazz submitted the minimum bid of $295 million for the block of spectrum just before the auction deadline. The company chose to pay the whole price upfront rather than taking the option of paying in six instalments with interest applied.

    While Ufone had been expected to participate in the auction as the only remaining operator without the capacity to launch 4G services, the company declined to take part citing the high cost of 4G services and handsets in the market that it claims are out of reach for the average Pakistani consumer.

    Zong also sat out of the auction after stating that the operator will not does not require additional bandwidth in the near future.

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  • DoCoMo to deploy Ericsson’s UDN

    DoCoMo to deploy Ericsson’s UDN

    Japan’s NTT DoCoMo has contracted Ericsson to provide the vendor’s Unified Delivery Network (UDN) global content delivery network solution for the DoCoMo mobile network.

    The contract marks Ericsson’s first deployment of its UDN in Japan. DoCoMo will initially use the platform to roll out content distribution services, and will follow this up by introducing future value added services including toll-free data for certain content.

    Ericsson’s UDN is designed to connect content providers worldwide with the last mile reach network operators can offer.

    It is designed to aggregate network capabilities to allow services to be optimized and monetized in new ways, while offering operators the ability to efficiently scale the delivery of OTT services and high-quality video content.

    “For future services, NTT DoCoMo foresees that consumption of 4K video, virtual reality and augmented reality content will increase and believes a platform like a UDN adds value in the high-speed 5G era,” the operator’s GM of service design Takaaki Sato said.

    Ericsson head of UDN service provider partnerships Cillilan Maher said its UDN ecosystem now encompasses 55 content providers and 40 operators worldwide.

    “As part of [this ecosystem], DoCoMo will be able to significantly advance the traditional content delivery network model,” he said.

    “As a service provider partner, they will be able to garner incremental revenue and can participate as a content provider, driving traffic through both their own network and the UDN ecosystem.”

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  • Vodafone New Zealand, Spark step up IoT push

    Vodafone New Zealand, Spark step up IoT push

    New Zealand telecoms operators are entering the race for IoT, with Vodafone and Spark both announcing they will soon roll out IoT networks in the country using low-power, wide-area networking (LPWAN) technologies.

    Following initial tests with technology partner Nokia last September, Vodafone NZ said it will deploy a narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) network early next year to support an expected surge in IoT applications over the coming years.

    Vodafone NZ will pilot the technology with a select group of business customers – including transport technology services company EROAD – during late 2017, before a rollout in early 2018.

    NB-IoT uses dedicated bandwidth and licensed spectrum to deliver secure coverage across vast geographical areas. The 3GPP standard is designed to support a new wave of IoT devices – such as field and waterway sensors – that transmit small amounts of data but have a long, flexible life cycle, up to 15 years in some cases.

    “There are many IoT networks available now but we think NB-IoT is a premium technology choice that is worth waiting for,” said Vodafone technology director Tony Baird. “It is supported by over 40 of the world’s largest mobile operators plus many more suppliers and innovators that serve the majority of the global IoT market.”

    Vodafone NZ currently has more than 1.4 million connected devices operating across its 2G network in the country. The NB-IoT deployment is an evolution of this network, so it can support tens of millions more devices in future, Baird noted.

    On a similar move, incumbent carrier Spark (formerly known as Telecom New Zealand) said it has partnered with Actility and Kordia on designing and building a separate IoT network based on the LoRa (Low Range) standard.

    “A significant proportion” of the network is expected to be operational by June 2018, enabling sensors and devices to be connected over the LoRa network nationwide, with broad coverage at an affordable price point, Spark said in a statement.

    Michael Stribling, Spark’s general manager for IoT, said the company is also advancing plans to deploy mobile network-based IoT networks (LTE-M1 and Narrow-Band LTE).

    “We believe that there are different use cases emerging for different IoT networks, depending on the level and type of data that needs to be transmitted by IoT devices. In making an investment in LoRa, in addition to its LTE investments, Spark believes it will be in position to provide the broadest set of IoT solutions to its customers,” the executive said.

    Spark has already involved in the “Connected Farms” trial with Farmlands, NIWA and Ballance Agri-Nutrients, as well as device partners to roll-out pilot IoT capabilities on farm in the Waikato. The trial, which launched in April, is a new concept for farm digital services which aimed to demonstrate new levels of connectivity for farmers enabled by smart sensor technologies.

    Both Vodafone NZ’s and Spark’s IoT announcements come in the wake of a New Zealand IoT Alliance report predicting that New Zealand could reap NZ$2.2 billion ($1.6 billion) of economic benefits over ten years from the application of the IoT across key sectors of the economy.

    That report aligns with IDC predictions that New Zealand will be APAC’s third most mature market in terms of IoT units per capita by 2020 – naming the agricultural sector as a key growth driver.

    “IoT is approaching a tipping point and it’s starting to transform the way we live our lives and run our businesses,” Baird said.

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  • Australian spies to disrupt cybercrime groups

    Australian spies to disrupt cybercrime groups

    Citing the growing cost of cybercrime in the economy, the Australian government has directed the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) intelligence agency to utilize its offensive cyber capabilities to disrupt, degrade, deny and deter organized offshore cyber criminals.

    Currently used to help target, disrupt and defeat terrorist organizations such as Daesh, the offense capability is subject to stringent legal oversight and is consistent with Australia’s obligations under international law, the government announced.

    It will function as part of the Government’s crime-fighting arsenal and contribute to the broader strategy of preventing and shutting down safe havens for offshore cyber criminals. However, cyber security and law enforcement measures will continue to sit at the forefront of Australia’s response to cybercrime threats.

    This directive follows the Government’s public acknowledgement of ASD’s offensive cyber-capabilities when Australia’s Cyber Security Strategy was launched in April 2016, for which the Government contributed A$230 million.

    Additionally, the Defence White Paper contains up to A$400 million to enhance the cyber-capabilities of Australia’s defence forces.

    Cybercrime is conservatively estimated to cost the Australian economy A$1 billion ($766.1 million) annually. The recent WannaCry and Petya ransomware attacks have affected governments, businesses and individuals around the world. With constantly evolving strategies, cyber-criminals are increasingly targeting businesses directly.

  • Nokia formally launches Nokia Shanghai Bell JV

    Nokia formally launches Nokia Shanghai Bell JV

    Nokia has announced the completion of the transaction with the China Huaxin Post & Telecommunication Economy Development Center to create the Nokia Shanghai Bell joint venture.

    The deal marks the official launch of the Nokia Shanghai Bell business, which combines the former Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell with Nokia’s China business.

    But the two entities have effectively operated as one since January 2016, following Nokia’s purchase of Alcatel-Lucent in a $17 billion all-stock deal. Nokia and China Huaxin also signed a final agreement last month covering the integration of the two businesses and establishment of Nokia Shanghai Bell.

    China Huaxin is a state-owned industrial development company that owned half of the Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell joint venture. Nokia owns a 50% plus one share stake in the Nokia Shanghai Bell joint venture, with China Huaxin owning the remainder.

    Nokia Shanghai Bell will become an integral part of Nokia’s global R&D operations, with around 10,000 researchers across six R&D sites in the nation. It will act as Nokia’s exclusive platform in China for the continued development of new technologies in areas such as IP routing, optical and 5G.

    Nokia Shanghai Bell also plans to support strategic R&D initiatives of the Chinese government and conduct long-term research projects as part of Nokia Bell Labs’ Future X Network program.

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  • Ncell taps ZTE for network virtualization

    Ncell taps ZTE for network virtualization

    Nepal’s Ncell Axiata has contracted ZTE to provide network virrtualization technologies for a new virtual subscriber data management (vSDM) platform.

    The operator’s vSDM platform will use advanced virtualization, advanced distributed architecture, hierarchical storage, multi-level protection and cloud technologies, ZTE said.

    Ncell is conducting the project in a bid to establish a more intelligent and flexible telecoms network while increasing cost savings on hardware investment and operations.

    Malaysia-based Axiata Group completed the acquisition of an 80% stake in Ncell in April 2016 for 5.9 billion ringgit ($1.37 billion). Ncell is competing with state-owned Nepal Telecom to be the market’s top operator by market share.

    Ncell has meanwhile announced it has expanded its LTE service to the Pokhara and Damauli areas as part of its plan to make 4G accessible to 15% of the population by the end of the year.

    The operator launched initial 4G services in Kathmandu Valley including in Nagarkot, and Banepa and Dhulikhel on June 1 after securing permission to deploy services over its existing spectrum under Nepal’s technology neutrality principles.

    Ncell aims to make 4G service available in 40 cities nationwide by 2018. Nepal’s National Broadband Policy aims to make broadband connections available to 45% households within 2018 and connect all village development committees with broadband by 2020.

  • Taiwan cellcos switch off 2G networks

    Taiwan cellcos switch off 2G networks

    Taiwan’s mobile operators have completed the switch-off of their respective 2G networks.

    The switch-off on Saturday has left the nation’s remaining 2G holdouts unable to place any calls except for emergency calls, or send or receive text messages or use data serices.

    At the time of the shutdown there were an estimated 60,000 2G holdouts on Chunghwa Telecom, 20,000 on Taiwan Mobile and 8,000 on Far EasTone, the report states.

    Remaining 2G customers’ numbers will be reserved until the end of December if they choose to upgrade to 4G.

    Taiwan Mobile is meanwhile redirecting customers attempting to place a call to a customer service center and will agree to temporary restart phone services if customers commit to upgrading to 4G. This redirection will last until July 7.

    With the move, Taiwan has become the latest APAC nation to transition away from 2G services to free up spectrum for 4G and other mobile services. The shutdown was prompted by the expiration of all existing 2G licenses.

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  • Companies to need new skills as VR enters workplace

    Companies to need new skills as VR enters workplace

    Enterprises need to start thinking now about ways virtual reality (VR) can be used within the workplace, according to recruiting experts Hays.

    While the technology is yet to become more commonplace across the wider world of work, experts say the possibility for its wider application is already here.

    As the technology sees an increase in its use, businesses will need the skills essential for its use. However, the skills required have yet to be standardized and may struggle to keep up with demand initially.

    VR came into existence seventy years ago and has been used across a number of applications since. In the 1970s it was utilized in the workplace for the first time, as it was used by the medical industry, military and in flight simulators.

    With the more recent technological leaps in VR, such as augmented reality (AR) seen in gaming, the technology is starting to make deeper inroads into the world of work.

    While the technology is still used by the military and in medical training, other sectors are beginning to use it to good effect too. One example is in the construction industry, with VR Developers being hired to give their clients a walkthrough of a building before construction has begun.

    One area where VR’s potential is being fully realized already is within training, historically it has been used in high-risk or high-value industries, such as aeronautical and engineering, but it is now being used to help train trade skills.

    In property and real estate, virtual reality platforms are enabling prospective buyers to view and look around the rooms of properties for sale without even leaving the comfort of their current home.

    “The number of possibilities virtual reality creates is astounding,” commented Lynne Roeder, managing director of Hays in Singapore. “While everyday use of the technology within business could still be some way off, there are a number of practical ways the tech could be implemented in the meantime to introduce a more personalized service to customers or to be used internally while managing remote workers.”

    Lynne continues, “Once we start exploring the many ways it could be implemented, it could have a big impact on the world of work. For example, interviews could be conducted in virtual rooms, allowing workers to be interviewed face-to-face, albeit virtually, for a job on the other side of the planet. Remote workers could easily connect to the office for one-to-one or team meetings, even on boarding or one to one training for an employee thousands of miles away would become so much easier.”

    But she added that  new technology creates new job roles and in turn the need for new skill sets. “Employers will need to look at their existing staff and see if there is the opportunity to upskill any of their employees, or whether it will involve bringing an entirely new skill base.”

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  • Philippines urged to bring in third telco

    Philippines urged to bring in third telco

    A Philippine think tank has urged the government to facilitate the entry of a third player into the nation’s telecoms market, but warned that a series of structural barriers will make this “extremely difficult” to achieve in the near future.

    The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) has published a new reporton the competitive landscape of the nation’s telecoms sector, in light of the recent buyout of San Miguel corporation’s telecoms assets.

    The report found that the acquisition, which ensured the telecoms market was left with only two main players – PLDT and Globe Telecom – “brought a cloud of doubt as to the motives” behind the transactions.

    Report author senior research fellow Erlinda Medalla recommended there be at least three major players in the industry to promote competition.

    But she said challenges “arising from structural barriers, such as the cost of obtaining various permits and licenses, the cost of obtaining rights of way, the available spectrum or bandwidth, and the foreign equity limitation” will make this difficult.

    To address these challenges, Medalla called for liberalization, competition, and regulatory reforms on the part of the Philippine Competition Commission, telecoms regulator NTC and the telecoms ministry.

    While the PCC is currently challenging the legality of the San Miguel acquisition in court, Medalla said the acquisition is a “done deal”. She urged the government to instead concentrate on ensuring the transaction benefits customers, including by pressuring PLDT and Globe to “increase and widen their services.”

    But she also suggested that rules on future M&As be introduced that would mitigate potential anti-competitive impacts and ensuring that a dominant position arising from a merger produces gains for consumers.

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  • Nokia to expand its presence in China

    Nokia to expand its presence in China

    Nokia has announced plans to establish a dedicated unit to help major Chinese internet companies expand overseas.

    The new unit will focus on areas including data centers, cloud computing, IP routing, transport and services, as well as emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning and edge cloud.

    Nokia is taking the initiative as part of its efforts to expand its business beyond its core telecoms operator market, and to further augment its Chinese presence following the launch of the Nokia Shanghai Bell joint venture in China (formerly Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell).

    Nokia separately announced it has completed the acquisition of telecoms software company Comptel. The acquisition was first announced in February and had a price tag of around €347 million ($396.8 million).

    The acquisition bolsters Nokia’s software portfolio by adding capabilities designed to help digital service providers bring new services to master faster and improve operational efficiency.

    Comptel’s suite of software will be added to Nokia’s OSS and BSS, analytics, security and cloud technology to provide a comprehensive suite of telecoms software designed to allow customers to deliver better digital experiences and operations in a cloud environment.

  • AWS to open Hong Kong infrastructure region next year

    AWS to open Hong Kong infrastructure region next year

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) is planning to open an infrastructure region in Hong Kong in 2018, making the city the eighth AWS Region in Asia Pacific.

    AWS’ launch of the Hong Kong infrastructure region will allow Hong Kong customers to store their data locally, and to build flexible, scalable, secure, and highly available applications.

    It will also enable Hong Kong customers to enjoy fast, low-latency access to websites, mobile applications, games, SaaS applications, big data analysis, Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and more.

    At launch, the new AWS Region will comprise three Availability Zones, said Alex Yung (pictured), corporate vice president and managing director of AWS Greater China, at the first AWS Summit hosted in Hong Kong today.

    According to an AWS spokesperson, Availability Zones (aka AZs) are isolated locations and are what each Region is made up of. AWS has three locations in Hong Kong for its AZs.

    “AZs allow customers to build highly available applications. They are distinct locations that are engineered to be insulated from failures in other AZs and provide inexpensive, low latency network connectivity to other AZs in the same region,” said the AWS spokesperson.

    “AZs are made up of one, and sometimes more, datacenters. AZs are also designed in such a way that if one AZ were to fall off the face of the earth for some reason, the other AZs would continue to function normally. This means customers can build their applications across multiple AZs so they are designed to handle failure and continue to operate uninterrupted.”

    Including Hong Kong, there will be eight AWS Regions in the Asia Pacific: Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing, Seoul, and Mumbai, and an additional Region in China (Ningxia) which is expected to launch in the coming months. Together, these Regions will provide AWS customers with a total of 19 Availability Zones, and allow them to architect highly fault tolerant applications. (Click here to view AWS’ global infrastructure.)

    In 2008, two years after AWS made its global launch, the cloud company opened a CloudFront Point of Presence (PoP) in Hong Kong to enable customers to serve content to end users with low latency. Since then, AWS has added two more PoPs in Hong Kong, the latest going live in 2016.

    In 2013, AWS opened an office in Hong Kong which is staffed by a wide range of functions including sales, support, technology evangelists, and marketing.

    “Hong Kong has a dynamic and vibrant business environment and is making progress toward becoming a digital city. An AWS Region here will enable our customers — from start-ups to large enterprises, and from financial institutions to government organizations — to enjoy cost and agility advantages across their entire IT operations, in compliance with local data regulations,” Yung said.

    Nicholas Yang, secretary for Innovation and Technology, Hong Kong government, welcomed AWS’s plan to open an infrastructure region in Hong Kong in 2018,” AWS’s global infrastructure coming to Hong Kong reaffirms Hong Kong’s status as the prime location for setting up data center facilities in the region and also a recognition of Hong Kong’s edge and strengths as an Asia hub for doing business and a regional data hub.”

    “The new AWS Region in Hong Kong will further accelerate cloud computing adoption and cloud-based system development in Hong Kong, facilitating the digital transformation of businesses in this city. Hong Kong is well-positioned to become a premier global data hub in the region. We will continue to promote our competitive advantages and encourage prospective operators to establish a presence in Hong Kong,” Yang added.

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