With India emerging as one of NetApp’s fastest-growing and top four markets in Asia, the company sees immense potential in India’s BFSI, telecom, IT services, and public sector, where data-driven decision-making is accelerating.

“Data is exploding. In India, we have data sets like Aadhaar, UPI, and Digiyatra. If you look at our demographics, the growing economy, and how digitisation is happening, data is exploding. This means a company like ours will be more relevant in the market for our customers. Things will be good as we go forward. India is a competitive market and we’ve operated here for more than 20 years. We are well versed with the market and our business across the segments, whether the public sector enterprise or commercial, all have remained strong over the years,” shared Puneet Gupta, Vice President and Managing Director, NetApp India/SAARC.

In the Indian market, the largest vendors are in the BFSI, telecom, IT/ITeS industries, and the public sector, all of which are doing well, he said.

Global footprint

NetApp caters to three regions worldwide — North America, Europe, which includes LATAM, and the Asia-Pacific region. India’s expansion by a smaller denominator contributes to its status as the fastest-growing region for the company, especially in comparison to North America.

Gupta continued, “In the India market, we have seen a fair amount of data exploding. NetApp has done well in India and we are now a market leader in all flash with a 30.3 per cent market share. We even have a 10-point lead over the next competitor.”

NetApp has over 3,000 employees in India, a significant share of its global headcount of 12,000. Alongside, half of the company’s research & development (R&D) teams are in India, with the country having NetApp’s largest R&D centre worldwide, shared Krish Vitaldevara, Senior Vice President, Core Platforms, NetApp.

“50% of the core technology team resides in India. We do a lot of innovation straight out of here. All our anti-ransomware and security efforts are run by the engineering teams in India, and so is the majority of our AI work. 50% of the growth for my team has come from India. Of the 300-plus people we hired last year, half were in India,” Vitaldevara noted, adding India is important not just from a business perspective, but also from an innovation and R&D standpoint.

Last year, the US-headquartered company, hired 50 per cent from the US, and then 50 per cent from India, with a little talent addition in Ireland, Vitaldevara said, addressing Trump’s focus on local hiring.

“We don’t see those plans changing. We expect to continue investing and hiring a good amount of our talent in India,” he said.