Parallels Publishes Survey Results on the ₹5.5B Cloud Services Market for Indian Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs)

Over 75 percent of respondents plan to adopt both Hosted Infrastructure and Web presence services in the next three years

DELHI, INDIA - November 30, 2011 - Parallels, the hosting and Cloud services enablement leader, today released the key findings of Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ for India, a report illustrating how service providers can profit by delivering Cloud services to small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India. Parallels estimates that the Indian SMB Cloud services market, which includes hosted infrastructure and Web presence services—at ₹5.5B (US$123M) in 2011. Of this total, hosted infrastructure has the largest share, with ₹4.3B (US$97M), and Web presence has the remaining ₹1.2B (US$26M).

Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ for India addresses the types of Cloud services that hold the most appeal for SMBs in India, and details the best opportunities for service providers to drive growth and revenue in the Indian hosting market. In this report, Parallels concludes that service providers who enter the market with an emphasis on educating SMBs and building strong Cloud service brands will be well-positioned to profit from the vast and accelerating market opportunities for Cloud services across India.

“Although the Cloud adoption rate is still in its infancy, India is clearly poised for explosive growth as its SMBs are showing the highest level of willingness to adopt Cloud services,” said John Zanni, vice president of service provider marketing and alliances of Parallels. “Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ for India provides a road map for service providers to help them deliver Cloud solutions that resonate to the specific needs and demands of SMBs.”

Parallels concludes that Indian service providers need to target their offerings to specific SMB audiences, and delineate between those businesses that do or don’t have internal IT resources, and those who use external IT consultants. With a different set of marketing messages for each IT scenario, service providers can expect access to a more receptive market, as SMBs are anxious for the gains in productivity and Web presence that Cloud services can provide.

“With the well-educated workforce coupled with technical prowess, Indian SMBs are well equipped to understand and embrace the benefits of Cloud services,” said Prasanna Ram, CEO of Kryptos. “We look forward continuing our relationship with Parallels and welcome their latest research, which will undoubtedly help the Indian hosting community fostering a robust Cloud ecosystem.”

Additional key research findings in Parallels SMB Cloud Insights™ for India include:

• Hosted Infrastructure
  • Huge growth opportunity lies ahead as only five percent of the SMB population use servers of any kind. 30 percent of SMBs without servers are planning to adopt hosted servers in the next three years.
• Web Presence
  • Only 8 percent of Indian SMBs have a website, a number that lags far behind that of more mature markets, where website penetration ranges between 70-95 percent. Among those SMBs with websites, 50 percent are self-hosting to manage their Web presence.
  • 78 percent of SMBs who use a stand-alone Web hosting plan intend to increase their spending in the next three years.
• Hosted Communication and Collaboration
  • Only eight percent of Indian SMBs currently report having e-mail, and are predominantly using free e-mail services.
  • Larger SMBs have greater need for the organizational and collaboration features of hosted business e-mail. Of SMBs in this size segment, 50 percent plan to add hosted e-mail, and 42 percent of companies that already have hosted e-mail plan to spend more on this service.
  • Price is a leading concern among SMBs with in-house PBX systems. 59 percent named price as the main reason they haven’t switched to hosted PBX, and 34 percent indicated they were concerned about sunk costs in their current in-house PBX system.
  • Service providers looking to break into the Indian market should target SMBs that currently use in-house PBX systems (30 percent) as over 40 percent of these are considering adopting hosted PBX in the next three years.
• Other Online Applications (SaaS)
  • Approximately nine percent of Indian SMBs are using some form of free or paid online applications.
  • Indian SMBs are most willing to pay more for Web conferencing, content management, and file sharing, with 47 percent, 34 percent, and 30 percent of current users, respectively, planning to increase their spending on these applications.

To download Parallels SMB Cloud Insights Reports™ click here.

About Parallels
Parallels is a worldwide leader in hosting and Cloud service enablement and desktop virtualization. Founded in 1999, Parallels is a fast-growing company with more than 800 employees in North America, Europe, and Asia. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ParallelsCloud and Like Us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ParallelsCloud.