Tata Comm aims $1 bn US business in 3 years

Integration of its acquisition of The Switch Enterprises that has premium clients, and the contribution of enterprise clients and hyperscalers to its connectivity business are expected to drive the growth.

“After India, the US will turn out to be the second biggest market for us,” Amur S. Lakshminarayanan, managing director and chief executive officer said in an interview. He pointed to the hyperscalers and service providers it works with, and its acquisitions of Switch and Kaleyra in the US.

“Our ambition would be how we make the US business to be $700 million-1 billion business kind of a size in the medium term, which is three years,” he said.

While the company now segregates revenues for India and the international markets, it will begin to provide individual revenues for large international markets including the US in the coming quarters.

In FY23, Tata Communications posted a revenue of ₹18,201 crore and for the six months ended September 2023, it recorded a revenue of ₹9,857 crore.

Lakshminarayanan said the US market’s current contribution to overall revenue was far below $500 million, the halfway mark of the revenue expected from the American business in three years.

However, he intends to increase the share of revenue coming from international markets where it now holds a challenger position in the communications platforms and connected infrastructure solutions, with high-value, prestigious clients such as Formula One and banks.

“We are seeing increasing traction with customers across all our platforms, after the acquisitions,” he said.

Tata Communications is also investing in AI in products and solutions such as voice platforms that it provides to enterprises, where AI is being used to reduce spam calls and prevent bill shocks for companies.

It is also offering personalized video messages for consumers at retail chains using AI for Internet of Things platforms.

AI is also being used for connected cars to convey to carmakers the best locations for them and send software updates to the cars’ entertainment systems.

“World over, the OEMs (car makers) are losing $3.8 billion because of failed SOTA (software over-the-air updates) because of connectivity, but we’re able to bring that intelligence to them using AI and ML,” he added.

He added that Tata Communications’ partnership with Nvidia to launch its own AI Cloud could also be used for offering an edge-based platform for large corporations to train their models.

Tata Communications is undertaking 10 trials for several customers in India, which are in various phases of request for proposals, to set up captive 5G networks for enterprises.

The top executive added that use cases for 5G were still developing and largely focused on enterprises, in some cases requiring greater accuracy.

“Exciting news! Mint is now on WhatsApp Channels 🚀 Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest financial insights!” Click here!

Updated: 20 Oct 2023, 10:35 PM IST