France's OVH expands into India amid growing cloud adoption

French software firm OVHcloud (OVH.PA) has launched its first data center in India as it expands in the Asia-Pacific region aiming to capitalize on growing cloud adoption amid heightened concerns over data privacy, it said on Monday.

The new data center in Mumbai will provide Indian businesses with local computer and storage infrastructure to meet changing data compliance needs as India digitalizes and pushes for more data protection, OVH said.

International Data Corporation (IDC), a market intelligence firm focusing on the tech sector, in December projected the Indian market for public cloud services would reach $13.0 billion by 2026, with a compound-annual-growth rate of 23.1% between 2021-2026.

"The Indian market is a very...fast-growing market," CEO Michel Paulin told Reuters, adding OVH had already sold a few hundred servers.

OVH's strategy banks on opening 15 new sites around the world by 2024, also in Sydney and Singapore. Paulin said its high debt loans capacity credit and additional 200 million-euro funding from the European Investment Bank meant it could fund growth for the next four years.

The company already has over 30 data centers in the world and employs over 2,800 people.

"We will continue to recruit in India," Paulin said, adding OVH had created jobs last year in Mumbai to prepare the launch and implement the technical infrastructure.

Inflation and the impact of war in Ukraine have led many European companies into lay-offs or hiring freezes. But the need for digital and cloud solutions was still there, Paulin said.

"There is an understanding now by most of the public institutions that it's very important to...address these data sovereignty issues," Paulin said, adding OVH was in intense dialogue with the European Commission and France's government on these matters.

The UK on Thursday announced plans to ban the use of Chinese-owned TikTok on government corporate devices, following similar announcements by the US and the European Union.