By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff reporter
Samsung SDS, which is engaged in providing information technology (IT) based solutions and services, is considering raising its sales target for overseas operations this year.
Samsung's IT services arm earlier said the portion of its overseas sales throughout this year will reach 20 percent or some 830 billion won ($800 million) out of the total 2010 sales projection of 4.14 trillion won.
Spokeswoman Lee Eun-young said the company has seen an increase in overseas sales over the recent years. Last year, some 13 percent of the total revenue of 3.57 trillion won came from overseas.
"It's been true that SDS has steadily been strengthening our overseas businesses in a bid to become an influential global player in the sector. But currently, we couldn't confirm whether to raise the target or not," she said.
Samsung SDS has just made a $9.3 million deal in Sri Lanka for the automation of the Inland Revenue Department of Sri Lanka.
Under the contract, the Korean provider will help the tax agency in the Southwest Asian country build administration data networks including a data center, the company said in a press release.
The latest deal is the third in Sri Lanka alone, Lee said. Samsung SDS had so far sealed a total $20.8 million in deals, including the first phase project of implementing the administration network for 325 government agencies of Sri Lanka.
In April, the company signed a $440 million contract with Kuwait Oil to provide an integrated security system, which it claimed was the biggest overseas project by a Korean IT firm.
Samsung SDS, which merged with Samsung Networks at the beginning of this year, is aiming to become the world's 10th-largest IT services company by 2015.
In a separate move, SDS is allocating more of its resources to boost its cloud computer services systems as a growing number of nations are seeing a surge in consumption of such services, driving growth in IT usage, while companies all over the world are showing keen attention to support transitions to cloud computing.