Buoyed by the encouraging performance in India over the last few years, global security solutions provider, Symantec Corporation, plans to focus on expanding its base through strategic acquisitions, a top company official said.

"India is an important destination for us. We are looking at acquisitions all the time and we will certainly want to acquire as many companies. We will be investing heavily in India to expand our presence in terms of IPs, sales offices, R&D units and increasing our workforce," Symantec's Vice President, Asia South Region, Eric Hoh, told PTI here.

Symantec has so far acquired around 160 different companies globally, he said, without, however, divulging any details about investment or acquisitions in India.

To expand its footprint, the company also plans to ramp-up distribution and enter into more partnerships with telecom firms, Hoh said.

Symantec currently has over 2,800 employees in India and three R&D centres--at Pune, Hyderabad and Bangalore. It also has six sales offices in major metros and plans to set up more in Tier II cities.

Hoh, alongwith Symantec's Vice-President, World Wide Sales, Bill Robbins, were in India to present the Symantec Luminary awards to IT leaders, across locations and sectors, for their innovative use of its products and services to deliver business benefits to their organisations.

While Reliance Communications won the award for leveraging Symantec's enterprise security to manage its critical business information and infrastructure, Genpact bagged one for enhancing its compliance and regulatory posture and Aircel for installing disaster recovery and business continuity technology.

Talking on how the Internet, mobility and social networking drive, that has increased with the use of computing devices by consumers, has posed a threat to several enterprises to secure information, data and privacy, Robbins said the company's strategy going forward would be to enhance the security features of IT infrastructure.

He further added that the enhanced features have been developed keeping in mind the increasing use of smart phones and devices such as a PC, iPad or iPhone, among others.

"The emphasis would be towards ensuring confidentiality and security," Robbins said.

The company today showcased its latest technologies ranging from effective management of large data centres and cloud computing, to the latest in security and storage.