Software giant SAP and China Telecom have jointly created a cloud data center in Shanghai that will deliver SAP’s first public cloud product – SuccessFactors HCM – to the Chinese market.

The move, first announced in November 2013 but now at completion, extends the collaboration between the two companies, who previously worked together to offer mobile device management services to the operator’s enterprise customers.

With strong growth forecasts being made for the cloud services market in the APAC region, analysts have cited SAPs Chinese offerings as the foundation for SAP’s strong performance over the past two quarters of the financial year.

In July it reported a nearly 50% rise in cloud subscription revenues in the region for Q2 2014.

SAP’s co-CEO Bill McDermott said while Australia and Malaysia accounted for a significant portion of that growth, SAP has high expectations for the Chinese market.

“China will be our second home,” McDermott said.

In order to formalize the joint running of the data center facility, the companies have created China DataCom Corporation a subsidiary of China Telecom.

In a statement SAP said it will work with CDC to expand the offering and bring more SAP cloud-based solutions to market in the region.

“This enables customers in China to derive the maximum benefit from cloud economics by using the world-class human resources solutions from SAP,” said a spokesman.

The first customer to adopt the public cloud version of SAP’s offering in China is CCS, which has implemented the SuccessFactors HCM solution at CDC.

It reported plans to extend the implementation to 15,000 more users at its headquarter and provincial branches.

IBM has also declared recent deal with China Telecom that will see the two companies jointly create and sell cloud services for local Chinese small and medium sized enterprises.