AIMS looks back on 2017 and looks forward to 2018

• AIMS finished 2017 on a strong note recording double digit revenue growth
• Cashless transactions to be among new trends of 2018 to take note of

The AIMS Group, Southeast Asia’s carrier-neutral data services provider, shared its review of 2017 and outlook for 2018.

AIMS Group chief executive officer, Chiew Kok Hin (pic above) said, “This year has seen some interesting developments for the data centre industry. In 2016, the 'Inter-Data Centre (DC) Network’ initiative was launched by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to bring down connectivity cost for data centres. This initiative sparked a widespread competition amongst telecommunication players to bring down the cost of connectivity.

“The nearly 300 percent decrease in cost has made us more competitive with Singapore. Further to that, we are seeing more international organisations treating Singapore and Malaysia as twin cities in their plans to connect the region to the world,” added Chiew.  

AIMS in 2017

“Our strategies and investments in 2017 have ensured that we will continue to report double digit revenue growth for 2017, above expected industry growth,” shared Chiew.

“AIMS is always committed to providing our customers with the best and most reliable service and our sustained growth and expansion demonstrates their trust in us. Our strong expertise and foresight has allowed us to stay at the forefront both locally and regionally, rising above industry norms. In anticipation of demand, we will be adding an additional 18,000 sqft of space for the Klang Valley as we are now at more than 85% percent capacity in our existing space,” he added.

In 2017, AIMS was the only Malaysian data centre listed on the Cloudscene* Top 10 Asia data centre list; coming in at 7th place for the 3rd quarter of 2017.

*Cloudscene is the world’s largest directory of co-location data centers, cloud service providers and network fabrics. The top players in each region were selected from a pool of more than 5,300 global service providers listed on Cloudscene.

Challenges in 2018

“The price of electricity continues to be a huge issue for the industry as it makes up 40 percent of our operations cost. In addition, customers are becoming more environmentally conscious and we had the foresight to start investing heavily in green technology to meet this need. One of the most notable investment is innovatively applying Dynamic Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supply (‘DRUPS’), which is widely used in the manufacturing industry, in data centres to reduce environmental harm,” Chiew said.

 “Our customers appreciate AIMS’ environmental policies and this helps to maintain their trust in us as a civic-minded data centre partner,” explained Chiew. 

“However not all data centres will be able or willing to invest in DRUPS due to its higher capital cost, so we hope the government will look into some incentives to encourage industry players to adopt green initiatives while considering the revisitation of electricity tariff,” added Chiew.

Prospects of 2018

“Cashless transactions will be a game changer for how businesses operate in Malaysia in 2018. Both Alipay and WeChat Pay are set to officially enter Malaysia and transform the mobile payment industry here,” he explained.

“A cashless society is the way to move forward and in order to stay ahead of the game, small business owners (SME), retailers and e-commerce players, need to get their websites and physical stores ready to address this new change or risk being left out,” Chiew added.

Currently, some businesses have started offering Alipay options to Chinese tourists visiting Malaysia as the bulk of the tourists are used to making cashless transactions. Signs stating ‘Alipay accepted’ have been increasing across the tourist capitals of Malaysia.

“Cashless transactions signal an increase in data and analytical potential for businesses to discover, so it is essential that these businesses start looking at ways to empower their business and ensure safe transactions for their customers,” Chiew shared.

AIMS in 2018

“AIMS is one of the most interconnected telecommunications hub in the region, and that has proven to be our advantage in creating an ecosystem of interconnected players from various industries such as telecommunications, multinationals, social media, e-commerce, financial institutions and more. We provide our customers a one stop centre for all their business needs and that is a value proposition that will continue to make us a sought after partner in the region.

We will continue to be driven and adaptable to new technology and our customers’ needs,” ended Chiew. 

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