Check Point Software Technologies Ltd, a leading Israeli provider of products and services for IT security to major multinational companies, is looking at expanding its India operations based out of Bengaluru in the next six months, sources familiar with the development told International Business Times (IBT).
The security product and services provider will add 80-100 people to its India operations, based primarily out of Bengaluru in the next six months, sources told IBT.
Nasdaq-listed Check Point is understood to be working out of a 1,800-2,000 sq ft office in its Bengaluru operations and is looking at expanding its operations by leasing out 7,000-8,000 sq ft of prime office space in the city centre.
"Against the backdrop of the global economic slowdown and flagging investments on security products by clients, as well as higher expenses hitting its operating margins, the company has been focussing more on slashing the enormous marketing costs involved in acquiring new clients, while improving its net margins by pushing value additions for its clients through security updates and related services," sources said.
A mail sent to Check Point's Asia-Pacific spokesperson late last week on the company's India expansion plans, remained unanswered at the time of going to e-press.
The growing captive center of the $1.74-billion company is expected to support services and security updates to its growing roster of clients worldwide.
Riding on a 27 percent rise in subscription sales, Check Point Software posted net profit after tax of $182.55 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, an increase of 9.04 percent compared with $167.42 million for the same period last year. Revenues rose 7.7 per cent to $435.45 million from $404.27 million posted during the same quarter last year.
Total expenses were 51.58 percent of quarterly revenues, up from 49.98 percent for the same period last year. That resulted in a contraction of 160 basis points in operating margin to 48.42 percent.
The Tel Aviv, Israel, and San Carlos, California-based firm has about 3,600 employees on its worldwide rolls. India staff numbers are as yet unknown. It has a market capitalisation of $18.49 billion on the Nasdaq.
Check Point was established in Ramat-Gan of Israel in 1993 by current CEO Gil Shwed, chairman and serial entrepreneur Marius Nacht and Shlomo Kramer, who left the company in 2003. Within the broader IT security domain, Check Point provides software and combined hardware and software products for network security, endpoint security, mobile security, data security and security management.
The company's products and services are sold to large enterprises, service providers, small and medium-sized businesses and consumers. It offers enterprises a platform to deploy independent, modular and interoperable security applications (Software Blades), such as firewall, virtual private network (VPN), intrusion prevention system (IPS), Application Control, Anti-Bot, antivirus, data loss prevention (DLP), policy management, event analysis or multi-domain management.
