- Extends services to better serve multinational corporations in Asia-Pacific region 

MONROE, Louisiana, Sept. 29, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) today announced the availability of its global managed hosting services in China, expanding the availability of its Asia-Pacific capabilities to better serve multinational corporations conducting business in the world's second-largest economy.

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CenturyLink customers can now access a comprehensive portfolio of managed hosting, security, cloud and networking solutions through a Shanghai data center. 

"For multinational corporations looking to grow their customer base, entering China presents enormous opportunities and challenges," said Gery Messer, CenturyLink managing director, Asia Pacific. "CenturyLink makes it easy for businesses to host within China's borders, offering access to the same highly secure managed services and consistent IT experience available across our global footprint."

IT spending in China will reach $375 billion in 2015, according to Gartner Inc. analysts Uko Tian, Venecia K Liu, Tracy Tsai and Eileen He in the April 25, 2014, report "Emerging Market Analysis: IT, China, 2014 and Beyond."

"The world's largest Internet and mobile population fosters the fast growth of e-commerce, as well as a vibrant Internet and social communication ecosystem. Moreover, these consumer-oriented technologies and services are driving IT to play a bigger role in businesses — mobile and social have changed how enterprises do business and engage with customers," the Gartner analysts write. "To deal with the fast-changing business requirements and massive data volume, enterprises have to invest in an agile IT infrastructure."

CenturyLink's industry-recognized hybrid cloud and IT infrastructure and services are delivered across 57 data centers worldwide, including five in Asia.

CenturyLink's new managed hosting, colocation and cloud presence in China is delivered through an agreement with Neusoft, a leading IT solutions and services provider in China, which has extensive market shares and customer bases in many infrastructure industries across the country. Businesses that need assistance entering the China market can also access extended services from CenturyLink through the Neusoft agreement.

"We are excited to collaborate with CenturyLink to meet the demand from its impressive enterprise customer base for China-based managed hosting solutions," said Angela Wang, senior vice president at Neusoft. "This collaboration offers clients a unique opportunity to expand their IT presence into China by leveraging the resources of two world-class global IT providers to help simplify the complexities inherent in China."

The data center is located in the Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone and operated by GDS, a leading provider of high-availability data center services in China. Citic Telecom CPC, an information and communication technology solutions provider and long-time CenturyLink provider in the Asia-Pacific region, serves as the network provider.

"CenturyLink provides its enterprise client base with extremely high standards of reliability and security, two things that GDS is also well known for," said William Huang, chief executive officer of GDS. "By matching a high-quality GDS data center with CenturyLink's enterprise-grade managed hosting platform, we can now offer compelling solutions to the enterprise market."

CenturyLink's expansion into China comes as the company continues its 2014 global data center expansions, including the recent opening of a second data center in the Toronto market. The growth is in direct response to ongoing demand for colocation, hybrid IT and cloud services in strategic markets.

About CenturyLink

CenturyLink is the third largest telecommunications company in the United States and is recognized as a leader in the network services market by technology industry analyst firms. The company is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions for enterprise customers. CenturyLink provides data, voice and managed services in local, national and select international markets through its high-quality advanced fiber optic network and multiple data centers for businesses and consumers. The company also offers advanced entertainment services under the CenturyLink^® Prism™ TV and DIRECTV brands. Headquartered in Monroe, La., CenturyLink is an S&P 500 company and is included among the Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations. For more information, visit www.centurylink.com.

SOURCE CenturyLink, Inc.