Packeteer Inc., the US-based networking major in WAN application traffic management, is expanding its India operations as part of its global strategy.

The $92-million Nasdaq-listed firm will open its sales and support centres in Bangalore and Delhi, with Mumbai as its headquarters in the sub-continent.

"During our first year of operations since we entered India in 2004, we have seen a strong growth due to increasing outsourcing requirements of multinationals and demand for our products and technologies from Indian customers in the financial services sector, Internet service providers and the government," Packeteer president & CEO Dave Cote told reporters here Friday.

"With the Indian economy on the rebound and global firms making a beeline to India, we are now setting up full-fledged operations to be closer to our customers and work with our local partners to consolidate our presence," Cote added.

Packeteer WAN application traffic management solutions enable customers work at speeds of up to 1Gbps.

"Our suite of products enables multi-site enterprises to share information on the WAN or Internet and provide remote users access to business productivity applications. Last year, we shipped about 7,000 units to India," Cote said.

Besides increasing its headcount to 15-20 employees in the next 12 months, the company will expand its partner network at the regional and national levels. It also plans to rope in global partners like Equant, HP and IBM and provide 24x7 support services for its global clients.

"Our game plan is to not only create awareness about our product offering, but also facilitate existing users to scale up their operations by migrating to our technologies," Cote said.

Though the company is currently catering to a few verticals ranging from financial services and ISPs to Web services, it is pitching hard for projects from other verticals such as government organizations, public sector enterprises and the manufacturing sector.

--Indo-Asian News Service