McAfee said that it is establishing a new wholly-owned subsidiary in China, as part of a new investment the company is making in the country and the Chinese market.
Dave DeWalt, president and chief executive officer of McAfee, said: “China offers compelling opportunities for McAfee. China has great potential as a centre for manufacturing, research and development for McAfee and is also a significant burgeoning market for our products. McAfee has continuously strengthened its presence in China over the last decade and we are planning to expand our investment in the near term to take full advantage of the opportunities China presents.”
According to McAfee, the expansion in China is planned to include a new wholly-owned subsidiary; a new call centre planned to open in Beijing in February 2010; additional headcount in functions including sales, sales engineering, marketing, support and research and development (R&D), including a planned doubling of the field sales organisation in 2010.
In addition, it also planned to enter into a partnership with Dell to offer China consumers 15 month subscriptions on all their retail and direct systems with a Microsoft Windows preinstalled; and plans to deepen partnerships with some of China’s companies including CS&S, Dell, Digital China, ECS, Lenovo, Shanghai SI and Suntek.
Mr DeWalt added: “We also recently signed an agreement in which China Unicom will market our security products to their mobile phone customers in China. In addition, China Telecom in Guangdong has also agreed to partner with McAfee to market McAfee products to their broadband users.”
McAfee estimates that its potential addressable market in China will grow from about $390m in 2009 to $1.09 billion in 2013.
