Pure Storage sees stellar growth in APAC

Experience in key industries

In Japan, Pure Storage’s largest market in Asia-Pacific, the company has built up a management team with experience in key industries such as manufacturing and finance.

It also recorded a 47% growth in the number of new customers in Japan, so “our message is resonating in that market”, said Petter.

During a media briefing on the sidelines of Pure Accelerate 2019 in Austin, Petter also pointed out the varying adoption of Pure Storage’s products across the region.

FlashBlade, for example, has been very well received in South Korea, more so than other markets in the region. “But we expect that once we get FlashBlade in, we will then get a drag on the other products as we broaden our conversations with Korean customers,” he said.

Matt Oostveen, chief technology officer for Pure Storage in Asia-Pacific and Japan, reckons the higher adoption of FlashBlade in South Korea is partly driven by the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics in the country’s manufacturing sector.

“FlashBlade is a high-performance, scale-out storage architecture that works very well for analytics workloads and has been found to be extremely useful for AI applications,” he told Computer Weekly.

On the company’s plans for China, Petter said Pure Storage currently operates out of Hong Kong and does not have a legal entity in the country.

“We’re also cognizant of some of the import and export taxes that are incurred in China,” said Petter, adding that Pure Storage needs to make sure it can be competitive against that backdrop if it were to succeed.

“We’re still in the early days, and we’re proceeding with caution,” he said. “This is a top-line, and not a margin play.”

Still, Petter acknowledged that China remains a big opportunity. “It’s the biggest market globally, and if you not in that country, you’ll have to question where your growth is going to come from.”