SAP brings new public cloud here; sees domestic market at $4.1 bn

Leading enterprise resources planning services provider SAP, which today launched its public cloud offering called Hana, expects the country to be among the top cloud markets globally by 2020, with a USD 4.1-billion market opportunity.

Called SAP S/4 (series 4) Hana Public Cloud, which was globally launched last year, is powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence and can help companies become more intelligent entities.

Hana is SAP's database which was launched back in 2010, while S/4 Hana Public Cloud is an enterprise resource planning software that functions in real-time and was first launched in 2015 and runs on Hana.

"India is expected to be among the top cloud markets in the world by 2020, with a USD 4.1-billion business opportunity," Melissa Di Donato, chief revenue officer for S/4 Hana Cloud at SAP, said announcing the launch of the new public cloud platform.

"By making our digital core all pervasive through this, SAP's market leadership in ERP space is poised to be replicated in the cloud as well," she added.

The 46-year-old SAP has been present in the country since past two decades and is the second largest subsidiary of German company in terms of resources employed with over 12,000 people under its rolls.

SAP India has around 10,000 customers here, of which around 80 per cent are SMEs, said Deb Deep Sengupta, president and managing director for SAP Indian subcontinent.

Meanwhile, consultancy firm Gartner today projected the country's public cloud services revenue to grow at 37.5 per cent in 2018 to USD 2.5 billion, up from USD 1.8 billion in 2017.

Infrastructure as a service will be the fastest growing segment of the public cloud market, according to Gartner, which will hit the USD 1-billion mark this year, an increase of 46 per cent over 2017.