A visitor in front of a Kingsoft Corp Ltd advertisement at a mobile Internet expo in Beijing. The company aims to become the leading player in the fast-growing domestic cloud-computing market. [Photo/China Daily]
CEO says it aims to become the world’s 2nd-largest operator after Amazon Web
One of the country’s leading anti-virus software and Internet services companies is aiming to lead the ever-growing domestic cloud-computing market, after experiencing dramatic growth since launching its cloud operations in 2012.
Zhang Hongjiang, chief executive officer of Kingsoft Corp Ltd, said its Kingsoft Cloud offshoot also has its sights firmly on becoming second globally, behind Amazon Web Services Inc, the world’s largest cloud provider.
Kingsoft Cloud has maintained annual growth of around 80 percent in its first three years, and during the second half of last year, the growth soared to 300 percent, after receiving a new round of funding worth $67 million in March.
The company has also been assured of 1 billion yuan ($153 million) in investment by Kingsoft’s group Chairman Lei Jun over the next three years, Zhang said, which gives him full confidence of achieving and maintaining a market leader in China.
When Kingsoft first embarked on developing cloud services, Zhang said, it planned to focus on developing infrastructure rather than software.
But as the market has developed, more firms have started targeting the former.
“The timing for us to enter the industry was just right,” said Zhang, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft China R&D Group and managing director of Microsoft Advanced Technology Center, before joining Kingsoft in 2011.
“The first layer of companies has now formed, meaning it is very difficult for newly established firms to enter the cloud-computing industry right now, especially those wanting to focus on infrastructure, which is expensive and highly technical.”
Zhang said Kingsoft entered the digital gaming industry in 2014. Last year it expanded into the online video industry too, which helped push that impressive H2 growth.