New Zealand IT services provider Datacom said its planning a move into China and is setting up a joint venture with a local company so it can help its customers reach the Chinese market.

 

Datacom provides applications and platforms and has more than 3,000 staff across Asia, in New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

 

It was selected earlier this year as one of five data center service providers for the Australian federal government, and the company is currently managing a transition towards providing cloud computing and hosted service applications in order to better follow market trends.

 

Datacom CEO Greg Davidson told The Dominion Post it was currently talking with a Chinese company but would not disclose specifics about the deal.

 

He did say the company could end up employing up to 200 people in mainland China.

 

Datacom recently posted record revenues of NZ$725m in 2010, up from $667m the year before.

 

It said its growth has largely been driven by overseas demand.

 

The company did, however, see a fall in net profit to NZ$22.3m for the same period, which it put down to tax changes and the wrapping up of the company’s Sydney software development business.