Ericsson has announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Vonage Holdings Corp. for $21 per share, representing a total acquisition price of approximately $6.2 billion. The transaction builds upon Ericsson’s stated intent to expand globally in wireless enterprise, offering existing customers an increased share of a market valued at $700 billion by 2030.
“Imagine putting the power and capabilities of 5G, the biggest global innovation platform, at the fingertips of developers.”
Börje Ekholm, Ericsson.
“The core of our strategy is to build leading mobile networks through technology leadership. This provides the foundation to build an enterprise business. The acquisition of Vonage is the next step in delivering on that strategic priority. Vonage gives us a platform to help our customers monetise the investments in the network, benefitting developers and businesses. Imagine putting the power and capabilities of 5G, the biggest global innovation platform, at the fingertips of developers. Then back it with Vonage’s advanced capabilities, in a world of 8 billion connected devices. Today we are making that possible,” said Börje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericsson.
“Today Network APIs are an established market for messaging, voice and video, but with a significant potential to capitalise on new 4G and 5G capabilities. Vonage’s strong developer ecosystem will get access to 4G and 5G network APIs, exposed in a simple and globally unified way. This will allow them to develop new innovative global offerings. Communication Service Providers will be able to better monetise their investments in network infrastructure by creating new API driven revenues. Finally, businesses will benefit from the 5G performance, impacting operational performance, and share in new value coming from applications on top of the network,” Ekholm continued.
Vonage Communications Platform
The cloud-based Vonage Communications Platform (VCP) serves over 120,000 customers and more than one million registered developers globally. The Application Programming Interface platform within VCP allows developers to embed high quality communications - including messaging, voice and video - into applications and products, without back-end infrastructure or interfaces. Vonage also provides Unified Communications as a Service and Contact Center as a Service solutions as part of the Vonage Communications Platform.
Vonage’s presence in the Communication Platform as a Service segment will provide Ericsson with an opportunity to access a complementary, substantial and high growth segment. With increasing investments in 4G and 5G networks - and a flourishing ecosystem of new applications and use cases leveraging the power of modern networks - demand from enterprises for programmable networks has been accelerating.
“Powerful 5G networks are forming the digital transformation.”
Rory Read, Vonage.
“Ericsson and Vonage have a shared ambition to accelerate our long-term growth strategy. The convergence of the internet, mobility, the cloud and powerful 5G networks are forming the digital transformation and intelligent communications wave, which is driving a secular change in the way businesses operate. The combination of our two companies offers exciting opportunities for customers, partners, developers and team members to capture this next wave,” said Rory Read, CEO of Vonage.
Full ecosystem
As a long term plan, Ericsson has stated it intends to offer value benefits to the full ecosystem – telecom operators, developers, and businesses – by creating a global platform for open network innovation, built on Ericsson and Vonage’s complementary solutions.
For Ericsson, this acquisition builds on the success of the integration of Cradlepoint in September 2020 – Cradlepoint has continued to develop strongly under Ericsson’s ownership.
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