India is the fastest-growing market for New Relic in Asia, says CEO Ashan Willy.
US-based New Relic is doubling down on its India operations after a year of rapid expansion, with plans to continue hiring and investing across its Bengaluru and Hyderabad sites, according to its chief executive officer, Ashan Willy.
"India continues to be a big strategic part of our business," Willy told BW Businessworld during his Bengaluru visit, adding that the company has seen 'a market difference' in India's technology maturity and innovation over the past decade. "We've invested significantly in the last year in India."
The America-based observability and telemetry platform, which helps enterprises monitor and optimize their digital systems, grew its India headcount from roughly 100 to nearly 800 employees over the past 18 months.
"We had about a hundred or so people pre-2024. We're close to 800 now," Willy said. "That's happened over the last 18 months, and we've been very pleased with that. We're still looking for more people. We have a hundred positions open right now."
Willy added that New Relic's new AI and agentic monitoring products were developed in India, underlining the local teams' growing ownership. "We just announced our new agentic monitoring capabilities and our MCP server. All of that came out of here," he said.
India's Role In Global Software And Decision-making
The CEO said India has evolved from being a cost centre for technology to a decision-making hub driving innovation for global enterprises.
"Eight years ago, we made decisions in the US, and India did the work. That has changed," Willy says. "Global companies now make decisions in India, and that never used to be the case."
He said that this shift was partly due to the influence of Indian-origin technology leaders in global corporations. "A lot of global 100 CTOs I talk to are of Indian origin. That understanding of talent and trust in India has moved a lot of decision-making and building here and not just for cost reasons, but for speed and value," he said.
Willy said New Relic has structured its go-to-market and product strategy to work with this trend. "We've adapted to that learning and co-locating development next to our customers in India is a big deal," he added.
India has emerged as New Relic's fastest-growing market in Asia, with the company's software deeply integrated into the country's rapidly expanding digital ecosystem.
"India is the fastest-growing market for us in Asia," says the New Relic CEO. "In the past, if you were getting one to two per cent of your revenue from India, you were probably average. I think that's going to change."
The company's local clients include digital-first enterprises (digital natives) such as Swiggy, Zepto and HealthifyMe, which rely on real-time monitoring to ensure uptime and performance.
"There's no such quick commerce anywhere else in the world," Willy said. "From customer click to delivery, all of those systems have to work in real time. The need for observability is really big in those areas."
He added that India's mobile-first ecosystem makes reliability even more critical. "With mobile, you almost need instant response. It's a very variable experience that has to be observed for you to be successful," he said.
New Relic is also targeting the BFSI and retail sectors as Indian enterprises accelerate their digital transformation. "We are targeting the larger BFSI players," Willy said, predicting the sector will follow the US and European trajectory where traditional banks acquired digital-first ones. "I think we'll see a similar roadmap here in India."
He said the company is preparing for India's growing focus on data sovereignty and security. "We have to be ready to support sovereignty and security regulations as they evolve. Not just India, but all countries are becoming more sovereign," he said.
Willy expects India to strike a balance between innovation and regulation. "The decision India will have to make is what's the line between innovating really fast and regulation," he said.
In retail, he noted the rise of real-time commerce as a major driver of demand for observability. "Any customer whose revenue is based on a digital footprint tends to use us," Willy said, citing the difference between US and Indian markets. "Here, everything is so real time, and the Indian consumer is not tolerant of things going wrong because they have lots of choices."
Willy said the rise of artificial intelligence has expanded the addressable market for observability. "We've seen adoption of our AI observability product grow roughly triple digits year over year," he said.
He added that many Indian enterprises have moved from AI experimentation to production. "Organisations are getting out of experimentation into implementation," he said.
The company estimates the global observability market at around USD 35-50 billion, augmented by the AI wave. "More AI-oriented code means you now have a non-deterministic force in your environment that you have to understand. Observability is the tool to go to that," Willy explained.
Willy confirmed that the company will continue investing aggressively in India. "I don't see India's growth slowing in any way," he said. "India's going to build software for the rest of the world for at least the next couple of decades, and it's really important for us to be here."