Verizon Telematics is betting big on its IoT business. Company’s latest acquisition of Fleetmatics, a web-based fleet management company for USD 2.4 billion, is considered to be a further step towards becoming a leading players in the IoT space.
Verizon, the second-biggest wireless provider in the U.S. by market value, has entered an agreement to acquire Fleetmatics in a deal valued at $2.4 billion. With approximately 1,200 employees, Fleetmatics is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with North American headquarters in Waltham, Mass. The company’s Web-based solutions provide fleet operators with visibility into vehicle location, fuel usage, speed and mileage, and other insights into their mobile workforce, helping them to reduce operating costs, as well as increase revenue.
“Fleetmatics is a market leader in North America — and increasingly internationally — and they’ve developed a wide-range of compelling SaaS-based products and solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses,” said Andrés Irlando, CEO of Verizon Telematics.
Varizon is diversifying away from being a telephone and internet provider. The Fleetmatics deal reflects company’s strategy of connecting objects to the internet wirelessly.
“We are excited to partner with Verizon in fulfilling the mission of becoming the largest mobile workforce management company in the world. Verizon and Fleetmatics share a vision that the SaaS-based fleet management solution market is extraordinarily large, lightly penetrated, global and fragmented which can best be attacked together with a world class product offering and the largest distribution channel in the industry,” said Jim Travers, Chairman and CEO of Fleetmatics.
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The deal also came amid Verizon’s bidding for Yahoo , which it last week agreed to buy for $4.8 billion. The deal, which Verizon expects to close in the fourth quarter of 2016, marks Verizon’s fourth valued at more than $1 billion since mid-2015.
Verizon has acquired a handful of companies, including nPhase, Hughes Telematics, and Telogis, to compete in telematics. Last week, the company closed its acquisition of mobile enterprise management software company Telogis Inc. It is not the first large communications company to get into the fleet management business this year. In April, Orange Business Services announced plans to buy Ocean, a fleet management vendor and fellow French company.
Verizon Telematics operates in more than 40 markets worldwide and offers mobile, software, and hardware products aimed at the connected-vehicle industry. The acquisition is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions, including the approval of Fleetmatics’ shareholders and the sanction of the Irish scheme of arrangement by which Verizon will acquire Fleetmatics by the Irish High Court, and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2016.