With the Porto Tech Hub Conference to be held on October 27, 2022, topics such as Cloud investments, AI and Blockchain in Portugal will be at the forefront with speakers from Google and Amazon Web Services.
Portugal already distinguishes itself with its Portuguese-native company OutSystems, which was ranked by Forbes Cloud 100 among the 100 top global companies for private cloud. Forbes Cloud 100 has a panel of judges that are CEOs of public companies operating in the cloud sector. With most nominated companies reaching the milestone of Euros 97 million and some reaching Euros 7.2 billion, the outlook for the Cloud economy is promising.
OutSystems, which was founded in 2001 in Lisbon, Portugal, is worth well over a billion dollars. The Portuguese founder of OutSystems, Paulo Rosado states that he provides a low-code platform for developing applications. The market for “low-code” software development platforms is expected to amount to 22 billion Euros in 2022. The company, which is the current market leader and supplier of the best product according to the prestigious technological consultancies Gartner and Forrester, is on the verge of becoming the next Portugal flagship enterprise. OutSystems is enabling cloud transformation that provides solutions to the main challenges faced by businesses.
Major international market-players are investing in cloud applications in Portugal, including Chinese JD.com and Alibaba.
JD.com is a Chinese e-commerce company that is a major B2C online retailer in China by transaction volume and revenue. It is a member of the Fortune Global 500 and a major competitor to Alibaba. Their Digital Marketing Jingteng plan integrates solutions for shopping and social data.
The Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com launched a virtual desk dedicated to the sale of Portuguese products, after an agreement signed in 2018 with the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP). During the first phase, the portal focused on wines, but will also integrate agri-business. The company Eternal Asia, based in Shenzhen, is responsible for the intermediation between Portuguese companies and JD.com for the import, distribution and marketing strategy.
China is the world leader in Internet sales. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the total volume of transactions in online sales in China reaches €4.2 billion, more than half of worldwide internet sales.
Based in Beijing, JD.com is the second largest e-commerce firm in the country after the Alibaba group, that holds 25% of the market share.
Alibaba Cloud Portugal, the Chinese e-commerce platform chose Porto to open the first of the company’s three international centers. Alibaba chose Portugal for its first service-center in Europe. The new hub will provide support to 88 countries in 3 regions. The two other hubs are Mexico and Malaysia. Alibaba is the fifth largest AI company and the second largest financial services group after Visa.
Alibaba Cloud provides digital services to the Africa-Middle East region in collaboration with Teleperformance. With its growth in the EU region, Alibaba is described as a Gateway to China in order to sell products to Chinese customers. Alibaba also describes itself as “The Gateway to Portuguese Companies in China: E-Commerce, Technology and Innovation", with plans to create a trade route giving access to Chinese customers. With the online payment platform Alipay service, businesses can facilitate payments for Chinese tourists.
The agreement signed between Alibaba and the Portugal Global Trade & Investment Agency (AICEP) aims at attracting foreign investment to help Portuguese companies reach 600 million Chinese customers.
Alibaba’s European strategy also aims to further its fast-growing cloud business to deliver digital transformation using cloud computing technology in the areas of retail, marketing, finance, logistics and other supporting services. In terms of Alibaba’s long-term growth goals, the company plans to reach two billion customers by 2036, which the company hopes to achieve in Europe.
With the emergence of the 5-6G network, the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and increasing cloud storage, the demand for data transfer will only increase. Everything from public services to industrial production will become even more dependent on the smooth functioning of subsea data cables, elevating the strategic importance of the cable infrastructure, especially considering the limitations of satellite technology in supplementing big data transfers.
According to IDC, the global spending on cloud computing services is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. Since the global pandemic of 2020, cloud technology jumped ahead in popularity due to the level of security of data and the flexibility of working options for remote workers. For example, Zoom grew over 160% in 2020 alone.
With such economic prospects, Portugal is looking up to the cloud for major Foreign Direct Investments.
Source: https://www.portugalbusinessesnews.com/post/cloud-investment-portugal