Kaspersky to invest $2 mn in India operations

Russian information technology security software provider, Kaspersky Lab, will be investing $2 million (approximately Rs 9 crore) in its India operations at Hyderabad during the next financial year, said its managing director (Asia Pacific) Harry Cheung.

The privately-held over $500-million company, which currently has three employees on its rolls at its Hyderabad centre, is planning to hire 120 more in FY11, besides looking at setting up a 100 people-strong call centre to support the entire Asia region.

“We are doing some research on the special incentives being extended by various state governments. However, Hyderabad will be our first choice for our proposed call centre,” Cheung told Business Standard.

Stating that Kaspersky sees India as a major market, next only to China, he said the company would be launching a low-cost anti-virus (AV) product tailor-made for the Indian market sometime next month.

According to IDC, the Indian secure content and threat management software market, including AV software, is currently estimated at $60 million and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.6 per cent by 2013.

“We are seeing our past experience in China in India now. What started off with 800,000 yuan (Rs 52 lakh) in first year of sales in China has reached 28 million yuan (Rs 18.4 crore) a year after, with the number of users reaching 300 million,” Cheung said.

Kaspersky, which has Hyderabad-based Zoom Technologies (India) Private Limited as its exclusive business-to-business (B2B) direct sales partner in India, currently has 400 million users globally.

“In India, we now have 1.2 million users, which we expect to reach 3 million during the next financial year, and zoom past China in the next two-three years,” Cheung said, adding the company generates 10 per cent of its revenues from the Asia Pacific region, and expects this to grow to 15 per cent in FY11 and to 40 per cent the year after.