Indian arm of McAfee soon

Security solutions provider McAfee is the latest one to realise the potential of India as a great market. McAfee, which was earlier operating through a liaison office in India, will now have its own subsidiary.

This will provide the company with more teeth to participate in open tenders and transact directly with the customers. The California-based firm's largest software development centre is located in India.

"As a liaison office, we were basically doing business development work. We were not able to do actual transactions and sign up great contracts. As a subsidiary, we will now be able to participate in tenders which require the vendors to quote directly," Kartik Shahani, regional director, India McAfee told Business Standard.

India is a growth story for McAfee globally. According to the company sources, while the Asia Pacific region contributed 30 per cent to the company's sales turnover of about $1.2 billion last year, India contributed 20 per cent to the company's APAC business. The Indian business is growing by about 50 per cent year-on-year.

"India is growing the fastest growing business in the APAC region. China has a language problem. We are going to make huge investments in India, which is going to be a separate entity in the next two months," Shahani added.

Ironically, in the APAC region, China and ANZ (Australia & New Zealand) are already operating as separate subsidiaries.

In the next 30-60 days, McAfee India Singapore, the company's liaison office in India, will have a different identity. The new entity will now be known as McAfee India Sales, McAfee's subsidiary in India.

In India, the corporate segment is the company's main growth driver, contributing 70 per cent to the firm's total revenue.