Red Hat looks to establish PHL unit

US-BASED software provider Red Hat, Inc. is looking to establish a subsidiary in the Philippines as it sees growing adoption of open source solutions here, especially in the financial sector.

“Right now, we support our customers in the Philippines through our partners, but setting up a subsidiary here is a consideration,” Red Hat Senior Director and General Manager for ASEAN Damien Wong told a media briefing yesterday at Solaire Resort and Casino in Parañaque City.

“Our preferred approach is to set up subsidiaries in markets where we want to grow our presence in. We don’t take expansion lightly.”

The company just established units in Malaysia and Indonesia in 2015 and 2014, respectively.

“What went into the whole process is the consideration on the maturity of the market, level of penetration, and potential that we have in that market and other software factors. Many of these factors are very positive in the Philippines,” he said, but declined to disclose a target timetable.

The company reported a $1.79-billion revenue in its fiscal year ending February 2015. Mr. Wong said the Philippine market’s contribution is “growing” but did not release figures.

“The Philippines is one the fastest- growing economies in Asia and we see a lot of investment in enterprise IT (information technology). We expect many companies to adopt Red Hat technologies,” Mr. Wong said. “The awareness is growing, there is a pent-up demand.”

Red Hat is targeting to strengthen its hold on corporate clients, especially mid- market companies, in the telecommunications, banks, transportation, manufacturing and service sectors, as well as government agencies.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the company provides open source software solutions using a community-powered approach to cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies.