CITIC Telecom CPC Accelerates Business Expansion with Four-Pillar Strategy Reinforcing its Innovation Mission

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CITIC Telecom CPC Accelerates Business Expansion with Four-Pillar Strategy Reinforcing its Innovation Mission 

Continued ICT investment in diverse areas encompasses Cloud, Information Security, Data Center, and Networking to accelerate regional customers’ expansion

HONG KONG, 7 July 2016 – CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited (CITIC Telecom CPC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CITIC Telecom International Holdings Limited (SEHK: 1883), today announced a four-pillar strategy under the company’s corporate mission – “Innovation Never Stops.” The new strategy aimed at accelerating its Asia Pacific business growth includes new global data center roll-outs, network coverage expansion, a managed security services partnership (MSSP) with Fortinet, launching new cloud and security services, and development of next-generation technologies that capitalize on emerging ICT trends.

“The fast-changing ICT market engenders tremendous expansion opportunities for all of our four business pillars: cloud and data centers, networks, managed security services and cloud computing solutions,” said Mr. Ivan Tang, CITIC Telecom CPC’s Senior Vice President of Sales. “Our phenomenal success over the last few years proves the validity of our long-term growth strategy focused on a customer-first approach, strategic partnerships and continued investment in next-generation technologies and services.” he said.

“We are also excited about helping to empower our enterprise customers to expand their global footprints, by leveraging our top-of-the-line infrastructure, solutions and services, and also ramping up our capabilities in new ICT areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and Software-defined Anything (SDx),” Mr. Tang added.

A growing global arsenal of data centers and cloud services centers to support rapid company expansion

CITIC Telecom CPC firmly believes that reliable data center services are the foundation upon which opportunities are created, and success built, in the cloud era. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Asia Pacific data-center market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14.7% from 2015 - 2022 to reach US$32.8 billion at the end of 2022. Because China is one of the fastest growing markets in the region, CITIC Telecom CPC is opening a new data center in Guangzhou, China in September and another one in Beijing at the end of 2016 to seize the region’s biggest market opportunities. The Guangzhou and Beijing data centers are the latest additions to the company’s global portfolio of 27 data centers.

In addition to capturing growing market opportunities in China, the two new data centers will add to CITIC Telecom CPC’s network synergy of existing connectivity and cloud computing business resources around the world. 

To provide even higher flexibility and more comprehensive disaster recovery capabilities for its customers, CITIC Telecom CPC will launch two new SmartCLOUD™ cloud services centers globally in the second half of 2016, with one in Los Angeles in the U.S., and one in Frankfurt, Germany’s financial hub. This follows the company’s global cloud center network expansion strategy marked by the debut of two cloud centers in Asia – one in Taichung, Taiwan, and one in Tokyo, Japan earlier this year. In total, these new centers make 12 cloud centers, covering Asia Pacific, the U.S. and Europe. 

Complementing these strategic cloud services centers will be the launch of CITIC Telecom CPC’s SmartCLOUD™ Professional Service in the second half of 2016. These premium-level cloud services will be crucial for enterprises lacking adequate IT resources and expertise to implement, support and monitor cloud operating systems and applications. With professional support optimizing their IT investment, achieving faster response time and ensuring business continuity, CITIC Telecom CPC’s enterprise customers can concentrate on running their core businesses.

Partnerships expand scalable network services across Asia Pacific

The Belt-and-Road initiative is heralded as a blueprint for greater economic cooperation and growth in trade links, capital flows and infrastructure investment along a trade corridor spanning Asia, Europe and Africa. According to the latest report of the European IT Observatory (EITO), these are heady times for Central and Eastern European (CEE) firms hoping to tap the power of mobility, cloud applications, Big Data, the Internet of Things and social media. This marks a surge in the demand for ICT infrastructure and connectivity. In April, CITIC Telecom CPC undertook an aggressive acquisition strategy, securing assets of the telecommunication business of Linx Telecommunications B.V. (Linx Telecommunications).  

These new business assets have significantly expanded CITIC Telecom CPC’s global footprint from the Asia Pacific, North America and Western Europe to encompass Central Asia and Eastern Europe. In addition to expanded network reach, the acquisition enhances CITIC Telecom CPC’s Russian language market capabilities and access to underserved markets, for itself and for its customers.

Fortinet’s First MSSP Partnership in Asia Pacific creates synergy to better serve regional customers

CITIC Telecom CPC’s strategic alliance with Fortinet is hailed as the Company's flagship partnership in 2016. This monumental agreement entrusts CITIC Telecom CPC as Fortinet’s first Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) partner in Asia Pacific, and is designed to address the managed security services needs of enterprise customers who traditionally prefer to single-source their security solutions from a trusted provider when expanding into new markets. Under this partnership, CITIC Telecom CPC also launched its advanced enterprise security offering TrustCSI™ ATP (Advanced Threat Protection). 

“As more enterprises chose to outsource security to focus on their core business, managed security services will continue to grow in popularity. Frost & Sullivan has forecast the APAC MSS market to grow rapidly from US$2.48 billion in 2015 to US$3.77 billion in 2018. This means a huge opportunity for business expansion,” said Ms. Cherry Fung, Fortinet’s Country Manager for Hong Kong, Macau, and Mongolia.

“CITIC Telecom CPC, with its extensive service coverage in the region, reaches even developing zones, which are not served by many other service providers. They represent an ideal partner for us to take advantage of this growth.” 

“CITIC Telecom CPC’s expanded partnership with Fortinet is a testament to our trust in their ultra-high performance, stability and comprehensive functionality in network security solutions. Our unparalleled geographic reach enables Fortinet to gain first-mover advantage in Asia Pacific, particularly untapped developing markets that few providers can access," said Mr. Daniel Kwong, Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Security Services at CITIC Telecom CPC.

At the solution level, the partnership enabled the creation and launch of TrustCSI™ ATP, a sophisticated solution that helps safeguard enterprises against today’s advanced persistent threats. TrustCSI™ ATP combines CITIC Telecom CPC’s TrustCSI™ Managed Security Services with Fortinet’s high performance solutions—including the FortiGate® network security platform, FortiSandbox™ advanced threat protection appliances, and FortiWeb® web application firewalls. Backed by Fortinet’s FortiGuard® Labs threat research team and CITIC Telecom CPC’s 24x7 Security Operations Centers staffed by certified security experts, TrustCSI™ ATP delivers a Security Fabric to protect enterprises with pervasive and adaptive cybersecurity that spans IoT and remote devices, through the infrastructure core, and into the cloud. 

A brighter and bigger future with NFV and SDX

The Software-defined Networks (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) market is forecasted to grow at 86% CAGR, from approximately US$ 2 billion in 2015 to over US$ 45 billion in 2020, as per ReportsnReports.com. CITIC Telecom CPC plans to capitalize on this vast potential with a visionary roadmap, including enhancing its product portfolio with innovative new NFV-capable solutions, comprising virtualized UTM and networking devices (e.g., routers). Adding NFV capabilities to the company’s flagship products will be a key to more accelerated services provisioning, alongside even higher cost efficiency and savings on capital expenditure (CAPEX). CITIC Telecom CPC’s customers will also be able to fully realize the benefits of complete virtualization and tighter integration, paving the way to a bright future of immense SDx possibilities.

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About CITIC Telecom CPC 

CITIC Telecom International CPC Limited (“CITIC Telecom CPC”), a wholly owned subsidiary of CITIC Telecom International Holdings Limited (SEHK: 1883), is a trusted Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions provider with multiple branches across Asia Pacific, and a preferred partner by multinational corporations and business enterprises.

CITIC Telecom CPC delivers a range of innovative services, including: TrueCONNECT™ - an advanced MLPS VPN service which employs state-of-the-art fully meshed network, TrustCSI™ - an integrated suite of information security solutions, DataHouse – converged cloud solution and global unified management data center solutions, and SmartCLOUD™ – smarter, better and high performance cloud computing solutions which complement the company’s managed network, managed security, and managed cloud data center solutions. 

As further testament to its commitment in providing premium quality services in the Asia Pacific region, the company became the first VPN service provider in Hong Kong to achieve all four ICT related certifications in ISO 9001 – Quality Management System, ISO 27001 – Information Security Management System, ISO 20000 – Information Technology Service Management System, and ISO 14001 - Environmental Management System. Learn more at www.citictel-cpc.com.

About Fortinet 

Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. Fortinet empowers its customers with intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements of the borderless network - today and into the future. Only the Fortinet Security Fabric architecture can deliver security without compromise to address the most critical security challenges, whether in networked, application, cloud or mobile environments. More than 270,000 customers worldwide trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. Learn more at http://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.

From left:  Mr. Ivan Tang, Senior Vice President of Sales, CITIC Telecom CPC; Ms. Cherry Fung, Country Manager for Hong Kong, Macau, and Mongolia, Fortinet; Mr. Daniel Kwong, Senior Vice President of Information Technology and Security Services, CITIC Telecom CPC.

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