NTT opens HK office in Asia bid

JAPANESE system integration giant NTT Data last week formally opened a regional branch office in Hong Kong and representative offices in Beijing with the immediate aim of servicing other Japanese multinationals in the territory.

Though the dominant system integration and computer networking company in Japan, NTT Data - a wholly-owned subsidiary of the telecommunications conglomerate NTT - is largely unknown in international markets.

But this low profile belies its size and financial strength: in the last financial year NTT Data's revenues were about US$4.5 billion.

In fact, NTT Data president and chief executive Shirou Fujita claims the company is second only to the General Motors subsidiary Electronic Data Systems (EDS) as the world's largest systems integrator.

Mr Fujita said the firm's Hong Kong office would be used both to support NTT Data's ambitious plans to penetrate the mainland market, and as a spring-board to developing new business in Southeast Asian markets of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Hong Kong is only NTT Data's third international office, following the establishment of regional offices in New York and London, and will be used as the headquarters for all the firm's Asia business outside of Japan.

The company was spun off as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 1988, having originally been NTT's in-house computing resource - much as EDS had been for General Motors.