NEC Corp., Japan’s biggest telecommunications equipment maker, is very optimist about Latin America. Its operations in countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Chile is addressing important growth, and the region will play a crucial role to help NEC reach its goals. The company plans to achieve US$ 50 billion in revenue by March 2018 (the company’s fiscal year runs from April to March). Half of that revenue is expected to come from outside Japan, namely from five other regions: Asia-Pacific, China, EMEA, North America and Latam.
Each area will be responsible for around US$ 5 billion in revenue. And it won’t be different for Latam, which counted a revenue of US$ 500 million in 2010 fiscal year (Brazil represents half of that) and expects to reach US$ 600 million in the 2011 fiscal year. By 2012, the revenue is estimated to double and achieve US$ 1 billion.
“It’s very high standard, I know, but the environment is good. This is a global strategy of growth,” explained Latam CEO Tadashi Ugajin, chief executive officer for Latin America. According to him, the promising markets are the emerging countries, such as the BRIC countries. “Brazil and India are very goods ones due to political systems and trading issues.”
Fifa World Cup
Everybody in Brazil is very excited about investments resulting from the 2014 World Cup. For Ugajin, this represents a big opportunity for the country. “Japan already has organized a World Cup and Olympics Games. The impact in the economy was really positive, including ICT investments. I think there’s a business opportunity, because, for instance, Brazil needs more stadiums and to build them it’s necessary to provide ICT,” he said.
Brazil’s NEC president, Herberto Yamamuro, adds that it will be necessary to enhance urban mobility, and invest in airports, electricity, and also in security. “And we will need to be able to prepare the infrastructure based on the future technology,” he said.
