Vodafone India is making a foray into the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) segment with mobility, connectivity and cloud computing services on the offer.

“It is (SME sector) currently the fastest growing market and that is the reason why any telco wants to get into the market,” Vodafone India Executive Vice President and Head —SME Business Deepak Pande told PTI.

He said Vodafone’s suite consists of three kinds of products which include wireless products such as voice and data, connectivity services like internet lease lines and cloud computing.

“Right now we are offering mobility and connectivity services while the cloud computing products will be made available by the end of this financial year,” Pande said.

He said because of cloud computing and data becoming wireless, SME segment is turning out to be an attractive area.

With cloud computing, it is now possible to provide services even in small towns, he added.

There are around 4.5 million SMEs in the country and the market is estimated to be worth Rs 10,000 crore. Vodafone has around 80,000 SMEs as its customers.

To help SMEs get some kind of visibility and marketing, the company has taken an initiative where small enterprises from across the country are participating in a quiz show and the winner will get chance to place its logo on Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars that will race at the second season of the motor racing event slated for October 26-28, 2012.

This is the second time the company is organising such a show and it has received entries from around 3 lakh SMEs.

“It gives us access to them, gives us an opportunity to begin a conversation with them. This year we had 3 lakh SMEs register for this event, last year we had 80,000 companies,” Pande said.

In order to expand its reach to SME sector, the company is planning to reach out to 300 towns in one year’s time while the channel partners will also be tripled from 100 during the same time period.

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