20-fold Growth in 4 Years: Huawei Cloud Aims to Have the Longest-Running and Fastest-Growing Cloud Presence in Southeast Asia
Attributed to: Huawei Cloud
Huawei Cloud is seeing incredible momentum in the Asia Pacific region. In a recent Caijing interview, Mr Zeng Xingyun, President of Huawei Cloud Asia Pacific, shared some impressive growth numbers. He said that over just the past four years, Huawei’s public cloud services in Southeast Asia have grown by an astounding 20 times, making Huawei one of the fastest-growing clouds in the region. How did Huawei Cloud achieve this level of success in such a competitive landscape and become the cloud of choice for many Chinese enterprises to go global? Let’s start with digits. According to IDC, Huawei Cloud ranks No. 4 in the public cloud IaaS market in Southeast Asia, with a market share of 3.5%, the top among Chinese cloud vendors.
Mr Zeng holds that there are a few factors that have driven their rapid growth.
First, the customer-centric approach — putting customer needs above all else. The Southeast Asian market values innovative software and services, and Huawei tailors their offerings according to each customer’s specific requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all solution or business model. Truly understanding customers and delivering what they want paved the way to success for Huawei.
Cloud infrastructure is also a strategic priority for Huawei. They have made strategic investments in expanding their data centre coverage across the region. Currently, Huawei Cloud leads the pack with the most Availability Zones (AZs) in Southeast Asia — a total of 14 across 11 countries (Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, and Timor-Leste). In addition, Huawei Cloud has four data centre AZs in Hong Kong, China and plans to launch three more in Manila in December this year. By then, Huawei Cloud will have 21 data centre AZs in Southeast Asia, the highest number among cloud service providers.
Mr Zeng also emphasised the importance of long-term commitment to customers. Building brand and trust takes dedication over time, and relies on successful delivery. There is no shortcut to the success of B2B business. Huawei focuses on continually meeting promises, serving customer needs, and boosting its competitiveness in solutions and services, localised cloud infrastructure, and industry ecosystems. This ongoing customer-centric approach has earned Huawei Cloud a large customer base across local industries such as government and public sectors, IT, Internet cloud media, retail, culture, tourism, real estate, finance, banking, credit, and gaming. With extensive experience in industry digital transformation, in Thailand, Huawei Cloud was the first to launch a local cloud Region, has a 29.4% IaaS market share according to Gartner, and has won the national government cloud project. Major customers there include SCB Bank (Thailand’s second-largest commercial bank), BBTV (Thailand’s largest TV station), Siriraj Hospital (Thailand’s largest public hospital), and MONOMAX (a popular video streaming platform in Thailand).
Ecosystem partners are also crucial to Huawei Cloud. Huawei features developing partnerships based on customer needs. While focusing on IaaS and general PaaS services, Huawei Cloud aims to be neutral. As a longtime provider across Asia Pacific’s government, enterprise and carrier sectors, Huawei Cloud complements application software providers as well. Mr Zeng shared that Huawei Cloud ecosystem partners in Southeast Asia are classified into global, local, and Chinese ones. Customer needs always steer ecosystem cooperation and benefit sharing. According to IDC, Huawei Cloud leads in IaaS market share among Chinese vendors in Southeast Asia. It has become the cloud of choice for Chinese enterprises to go global.
In Asia Pacific, for Asia Pacific. Compliance also remains a top priority, ranked above commercial interests. Mr Zeng said Huawei cannot stress enough on compliance. Huawei is also ready to become a major contributor to the digital economy in the Asia Pacific. Huawei has cultivated more than 70,000 digital talent for Asia Pacific through projects such as ASEAN Academy and ICT Academy in 2022. Around 120 startups in places like Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia are supported via Huawei Cloud startup programs.
Strong local support is another key. With over 20 years in local markets, Huawei assists established government, enterprise, and carrier customers through professional local teams, while developing Internet service providers into cloud-native adopters. Four regional service centres and 170+ local centres provide 24/7 multilingual support.
Looking ahead, Mr. Zeng said Huawei Cloud will remain customer-centric in Southeast Asia, and keep improving competitiveness and creating value locally through partnerships and tailored services. “In local, for local”. Huawei Cloud aims to have the longest-running and fastest-growing cloud presence in the region.
