Exceda signs large business deal with LAN

Brazilian IT services provider Exceda has signed a contract with Chile's largest airline, LAN (NYSE: LFL), its first big deal in Latin America outside of Brazil, Exceda's marketing and sales director, Ricardo Couto, told BNamericas. Exceda won the bid to provide content delivery network (CDN) technology for the air carrier, Couto said, in "the second biggest deal in the world with an airline company concerning CDN services." The executive declined to disclose the contract's price. "The idea is to focus now on our businesses in Argentina and Chile, which truly surpassed our expectations, to solidify our operations in these countries, and then arrive in Peru and Colombia," he said. Exceda had originally announced it would open new offices in Peru and Colombia in the next few months, but Couto said the company is now likely to push back these plans to the first quarter of 2012. Operations in Argentina and Chile began mid-March and end-April, respectively. The company still forecasts 60% revenue growth for 2011, reaching 40mn reais (US$24.8mn), with the Argentina and Chile operations expected to account for 15% of total revenues by the first quarter of 2012. Founded in 2002, Exceda's customers include Embraer, Carrefour and AmBev. It is the exclusive partner in Brazil of US content delivery service provider Akamai (Nasdaq: AKAM).