Although most Indian telecommunications companies have adopted a strategy of reducing capital expenditures this year, Ciena believes that India’s telecommunications business will maintain growth momentum.

Amit Malik, President of Ciena India and South Asia, said, “Although 5G monetization has not yet begun, ARPU (average income per user) is sure to rise. India’s data center industry is also booming, and several data center companies plan to double their capacity in the next three years. In addition, for artificial intelligence (AI), networks need to be resilient and super intelligent, so the demand in the country is not scarce, all of which are the best points for us.”

Malik added, “I don’t think the revenue we receive from service providers will decrease, it’s just that the solutions we may sell are different from the past. In addition, as data consumption soars, telecommunications companies may need to make capacity expansion decisions in advance.”

After investing at a record speed in acquiring 5G spectrum and building 5G networks, India’s second largest telecommunications company Bharti Airtel mentioned that capital expenditures will decrease this year. On the other hand, several suppliers have privately emphasized Reliance Jie’s ongoing capital expenditures.

In this situation, like other telecommunications suppliers, Ciena is also looking for Vodafone Idea’s business this year. Vodafone Idea has raised funds through its recent subsequent public offering (FPO) and is ultimately preparing to launch 5G services this year. The booming data center market is another growth opportunity for Ciena in India.

Apart from the inactive Vodafone Idea last year, another challenge Ciena faces is the delay in laying submarine cables in India due to the Red Sea crisis.

The company is still looking for new ways to develop its business in India. The Internal Data Center Interconnection (DCI) is also undergoing changes as it was not truly high bandwidth in the early days, but with the current level of data center scale, Ciena believes there will be an opportunity to play a role within the data center. This is a relatively new field for Ciena.

In addition, Ciena has established a new vertical department with a focus on the government and public utilities sectors. Malik stated that the government has invested heavily in infrastructure, such as the power bureau transitioning from traditional networks to IP networks. Now we have a quite powerful combination of routing and switching products, so you will see us entering some of these areas.

Ciena also plans to collaborate with partners in new areas. Customers will see Ciena enter new fields together with channel partners and system integrators. So this is Ciena embarking on a new journey once again.

Ciena has recently acquired a new client, Constl. This subsidiary of the Space World Group will use Ciena’s solutions to provide metropolitan area network (MAN) and national long-distance (NLD) connectivity services.

Malik also mentioned that telecommunications companies are increasingly interested in using AI based solutions to improve operational efficiency. “I believe that artificial intelligence plays an important role in predicting, planning, and delivering networks. I believe there is great room for development in automation and artificial intelligence. It has already begun to happen and will accelerate its pace of progress.”