This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 27, 2017 - May 3, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Kronologi Asia Bhd is optimistic about a better financial year 2017 (FY17) as it looks to deepen its penetration of the Indian market and widen its presence in Southeast Asia.

It revealed this in an announcement on its new three-pronged growth strategy on Bursa Malaysia yesterday after acquiring full control of Quantum Storage (India) Pte Ltd (QSI) last October, which comes with an annual profit guarantee of US$1 million (RM4.35 million) in FY16 and FY17.

QSI contributed three months of the group’s revenue and profit in FY16 and was a factor for the 32.5% increase in total revenue that year to RM81.3 million and the 172% increase in profit before tax to RM7.8 million, it noted.

“The financial performance of FY17 is expected to be more optimistic than FY16, in view of the full consolidation of revenue and profit of QSI,” it said, adding the size and expansion rate of India’s economy will continue to offer healthy growth potential for the group.

Beyond the demand from small and medium enterprises for dedicated storage solutions, two sub-sectors, namely the development of smart cities and the management of media content have, and will continue to propel Kronologi Asia’s growth in India, it said.

The two other parts to its new growth strategy are the development of a transnational infrastructure across Asia for storage solutions; and to increase emphasis on managed services and dedicated storage backup across multiple locations.

“The group will explore options to fund the capital expenditure needed for the establishment of this transnational infrastructure which it intends to roll out over the medium term,” it added.

“The enhanced infrastructure will position the group to tap into the growing shift towards platform-as-a-service in which payment modes by enterprise customers are based on pay-per-use operating expenditure instead of incurring fixed capital expenditure previously,” it said.