Verizon to Ramp Up Telematics with Purchase of Fleetmatics
August 2, 2016
Following its $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo, Verizon announced it is purchasing Dublin-based telematics company Fleetmatics for $2.4 billion in cash. Fleetmatics will become part of the subsidiary Verizon Telematics, which primarily handles fleet management, mobile enterprise solutions and Internet of Things initiatives. Verizon’s AOL and Yahoo purchases will help build its media and advertising businesses, while the Fleetmatics acquisition points to the company’s enterprise mobility ambitions. The deal is expected to close by Q4 2016.
Verizon Telematics has made recent moves to expand its operations. To enhance its connected vehicle business, for example, the subsidiary announced an agreement to buy California-based Telogis, developer of cloud-based mobile workforce solutions.
Enterprise mobility has a great deal of potential. Current customers employ fleets of workers who are regularly on the move. According to the Fleetmatics website, existing clients include Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Virgin Media, Bright House Networks and Mediacom, among others.
“Fleetmatics is an SaaS-based provider of GPS and other services to fleets and companies with mobile workforces,” explains TechCrunch. “It has 37,000 customers, 737,000 subscribers and 1,200 employees. The services that it offers include location services, driver and car security services, fuel tracking, dispatching and billing/invoice services.”
Meanwhile, a growing new market is attracting various startups, vehicle-based businesses like Uber, and larger established companies such as Amazon that are interested in the services involved with this space.
“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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