Megaport in the ascendant with multicloud boom

After notching an 85 per cent surge in revenue and adding 56 new locations in FY18, Megaport (ASX: MP1) has even more ambitious goals within the next 12 months.

Now connecting to 221 data centre locations worldwide, the Network as a Service (NaaS) provider recorded revenue of $19.8 million for the year and the bottom line was improved by more than $5 million with a $24.5 million loss.

Megaport CEO Vincent English says the company aims to have a total of 300 locations by June 2019.

The executive highlights a "significant increase" in customers consuming more than one cloud service in the company's network. For more mature partners this can even reach above 11 services per customer.

"This year, we boosted the value of our cloud provider ecosystem with the addition of IBM Cloud and Salesforce. In Fiscal Year 2018, the number of Megaport customers accessing multicloud directly grew 208%," says English.

"Today, Megaport is connected to more cloud onramps than any other SDN [software-defined network] or interconnection fabric.

"This is driving significant uptake in direct cloud connectivity with 58% of all connections on our platform today directly connecting enterprises to cloud services. Megaport breaks down the physical barriers of interconnection and brings the cloud to the doorstep of enterprises."

In the year ahead, Megaport plans to deepen its ecosystem with service providers while developing more features to further virtualise the network.

"Taking a cue from our launch of Megaport Cloud Router, we will continue to produce powerful new tools enabling our customers to further realise the value of Networking as a Service," says English.

"There is a heavy emphasis on bringing the ecosystems to locations where there is no onramp, because at the end of the day that's really what's moving the interconnection and moving the interconnectivity away from the cloud onramp and bringing the customers back to the cloud providers.

English emphasises further penetration of the US will be critical for Megaport to be in the vanguard of the industry.

"We recognise that market is one of the richest markets in terms of access to customers and consumption of cloud, and it's important that we're at the forefront of that and to be in the locations we need to be to be able to capture that," he says.

The company has also announced founder Bevan Slattery will be stepping down from his role as executive director on 1 September, but the Rockhampton-raised businessman will stay on as a non-executive director and chairman of the board.

"The Board would like to thank Mr Slattery for his executive stewardship and strategic leadership and look forward to his continued commitment and involvement as a non-executive director of the Company," says independent non-executive director Simon Moore.

Business News Australia