Its CEO and president Joe Tucci will be visiting Beijing and Shanghai to meet with "key government and business leaders, IT influencers and the media to discuss the growth and importance of the information economy and how it relates to businesses in China," the Hopkinton, Massachusetts-headquartered company announced.
"Information technology is one of the pillars of China's future economy. The foundation of that IT pillar will be robust information storage technology," Tucci noted in a statement.
"More of China now runs on information, and more of that information will run on EMC storage systems in the years ahead," he predicted. We are excited about helping leading Chinese enterprises build the information infrastructure that will raise the new China in the information age."
According to Singapore-based company spokesperson Verdayne Nunis, Tucci's visit to China has been "planned for months and therefore not related to the WTO announcement." China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) last Saturday almost after a six-year wait.
Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange-listed company said that it has placed heavy emphasis on growing its international business.
Through the first three quarters of EMC's current fiscal year, more than 40 percent of its revenue came from business outside of the US," the company said.
Asia Pacific represents tremendous opportunity for EMC, and continued expansion in China remains a top priority. Asia Pacific (including Japan) constitutes approximately 13 percent of the company's worldwide revenues.
Citing IDC Asia Pacific estimates, EMC said Greater China's total external storage market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 17.9 percent from 1999 to 2005, and has valued the market to be worth in excess of US$830 million by 2005.
Commenting on customers in China, EMC Greater China and Philippines regional manager James Hanley said: "Our customers in China are sophisticated. They understand the value of a robust information infrastructure and how that contributes to their overall competitiveness."
"Having regionally established the awareness of EMC's leadership position in the last few years, the demand for our solutions in China is outpacing the industry growth rate," Hanley claimed.
According to Nunis, EMC works through distributors, reseller partners and systems integrators, one of which is its regional partner, Hong Kong-based Nikoyo Limited.
Speaking on the Chinese economy, Nikoyo (HK) Limited vice general manager Edward Lee commented: "Today China is one of the few countries with a healthy economy. Banking, finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and oil and gas companies are eager to improve their competitive advantage by leveraging the best-of-breed technology."
EMC China was established in 1996 in Beijing and has three representative offices in China--Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. There are 100 employees and more than three-quarters of these are customer-facing employees.
When asked if it plans to change the status of EMC office with the WTO announcement, Nunis said: "We have no plans to change the status at this time."
Customer-wins
EMC also announced two multi-million dollar customer-wins in China.
The company said that China Mobile and Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSCRC) contributed to "EMC China's continued growth in 2001."
China Mobile purchased 34 raw terabytes, EMC Symmetrix, Connectrix and a suite of software including ControlCenter, TimeFinder and PowerPath.
EMC also claimed that SSCRC has replaced Hewlett Packard, IBM and Sun products with its own because the latter is standardizing to a centralized automated EMC platform and building a disaster recovery site.
SSCRC purchase included multiple Symmetrix, an EMC Celerra and software including EMC SRDF, ControlCenter and HighRoad.
EMC shares last traded at US$15.51, up US$0.51 on the American bourse.
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