INTERVIEW-3Comsees revenue growing in Asia
Reuters - Friday March 5, 4:52 am Eastern Time
SINGAPORE, March 5 (Reuters) - Recovering Asian economies will help
boost revenues for 3Com Corp in the Asia-Pacific region despite the
computer networking giant's recent earnings and revenues warning, a
senior company executive said on Friday.
''We are starting to see growth now in Asia-Pacific. After going
through last year's currency crisis, countries and economies are more
stable now,'' Sanjiv Verma, general manager for 3Com South Asia, told
Reuters in an interview.
''We are seeing growth now and we believe this will continue,'' he said
of revenues in the Asia-Pacific region, which account for 11-13
percent of the company's global revenues.
''As Asia-Pacific is growing, we will see a higher percentage in the
overall company revenues,'' he said.
On Tuesday 3Com warned shareholders that its revenues would fall short
of expectations. It also said it expected to earn roughly 23 cents a
share in the third quarter ended February 28, far below consensus
estimates of 36 cents a share.
3Com has a market capitalisation of more than US$17.7 billion. Its
revenues totalled US$5.6 billion in 1997.
''We did experience some slow demand in Americas, but in Asia-Pacific
we didn't see that situation,'' Verma said.
Business in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore was
doing well and was growing at a rapid pace in India, he said.
3Com, the second largest U.S. computer networking company, accounted
for 27 percent of the market share in the Asia-Pacific region.
Verma said 3Com would continue to increase its market share but
declined to give a target.
3Com on Friday announced a US$4 million investment over the next two
years to build and support information technology education
infrastructure in Asia Pacific.
The computer networking firm has a product mix that includes networking
systems and and components necessary for building a networking
infrastructure from a single source.
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