National Telecom (NT) has set an aggressive growth target for its cloud service, which now contributes 4 billion baht per year, reaching 10 billion by 2027 as demand is expected to total 500,000 virtual machines (VMs) in three years.
The company hopes to grab 30% of demand as the Cloud First Policy Committee pushes all sectors towards digital government, said NT president Col Sanphachai Huvanandana.
The cabinet approved yesterday the establishment of the committee, expected to manage supply and demand for local cloud services, as well as improve the ecosystem and procurement through cooperation between the public and private sectors.
Under the committee structure, the digital economy and society (DES) minister is chairman, with the ministry's permanent secretary and relevant government agencies members.
The secretary-general of the National Digital Economy and Society Commission is a committee member and secretary.
NT operates cloud service through its own brand NT Cloud and runs the Government Data Centre and Cloud service, which handles demand for cloud services from state enterprises.
The infrastructure of the cloud service has three layers of services for enterprises, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Col Sanphachai said NT provides cloud service mainly through layers of IaaS, helping to migrate the data infrastructure of clients to higher layers of services.
"NT provides cloud service through its capacity of 50,000 VMs and expected to reach 150,000 VMs within three years," he said.
One VM of cloud service contributes 3,500 baht per VM per month to NT.
Col Sanphachai said NT is working to develop a joint venture to offer cloud services with layers of SaaS and PaaS.
"Those higher layers can boost revenue by 1.5 times from the level IaaS generates for NT," he said.
DES Minister Prasert Jantanaruangthong said creating the committee aligns with the cabinet resolution on May 14 regarding the procurement or rental of cloud services where projects need to proceed and have a clear source of funding.
In a related matter, NT yesterday revealed its performance for the first four months this year.
As of April this year, the company booked total revenue of 27.9 billion baht and total expenses of 25.6 billon baht, with net profit tallying 2.2 billion.
The revenue stream for the period saw mobile business contribute 15.6 billion baht to the company, fixed line and broadband 5.9 billion, hard infrastructure 3.1 billion, digital 916 million, international service 582 million, ICT solutions 578 million, state projects 75 million, and others 1.1 billion baht.