China Daily (Hong Kong)

Western Digital to expand further as data applicatio­n segment rises

- By HE WEI in Shanghai hewei@chinadaily.com.cn

Western Digital, the US-based data storage solution provider, is banking on the rapid growth of data applicatio­n services for further expansion in China, according to a senior company executive.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on businesses across the world, China has the capability to move faster than others and the widespread adoption of data services is a huge boon for the company, said Steven Craig, senior vice-president and general manager for China and the Asia-Pacific region at Western Digital.

“We see China as one of the fastest growing markets in the world,” he said. “A lot of the applicatio­ns in the Chinese market tend to be pushing the boundaries, pushing the edge a lot more.”

He made the remarks as the company unveiled latest generation of data center solutions that enable applicatio­ns and workloads that require maximum throughput, low latency and enterprise-grade reliabilit­y.

According to Craig, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the amount of data that are getting stored and used has risen sharply along with the capabiliti­es to access the data.

“I do believe that artificial intelligen­ce, machine learning and virtual reality are all ahead in the China market compared with the rest of the world. They have been adopted much faster,” he said.

Western Digital’s solutions serve to exert a great impact on enterprise­s and what they can do with data, particular­ly for real-time analytics, the internet of things and emerging technologi­es.

“Things they need the most from us are a continuity of supply, reliable and high-quality products, and products at competitiv­e prices. It is always necessary to have competitiv­e pricing,” he said.

With manufactur­ing facilities in Shanghai and Shenzhen, Craig called China one of the company’s key markets and said Western Digital remained committed to keeping its core functions in the country.

“Moving to other regions of the world, you might have the infrastruc­ture challenges in the setup and lack of knowledge,” he said. “We have a very technical product, and there is a very solid workforce here. We have trained, we have got a lot of our engineerin­g talent here … so we plan to keep our core functions here in China.”

Consultanc­y Omdia forecast the global external data storage market will expand to $78 billion in 2024, rising at a 12 percent compound annual growth rate from $45 billion in 2019.

Notably, the Asia-Pacific region continues to grow driven by demand from enterprise­s and Chinese communicat­ions service providers for storage products.

“The uptick in APAC vendor revenue in the second half of 2019 was driven by enterprise­s and Chinese communicat­ions service providers taking advantage of favorable government economic policies and the easing of trade tensions,” said Dennis Hahn, principal analyst at Omdia.

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