US company Comverse, which provides digital services such as monetization to CSPs, has announced it is acquiring UK SMS platform provider Acision.

Scott Bicheno

June 15, 2015

2 Min Read
Comverse continues digital services transition with Acision acquisition

US company Comverse, which provides digital services such as monetization to CSPs, has announced it is acquiring UK SMS platform provider Acision.

The purchase price consists of 3.13 million shares of Comverse stock and up to $170 million in cash, a lot of which will have been raised by the sale of Comverse’s BSS business to Amdocs at the end of April. At the time of that move Comverse stressed it wanted to focus on digital services and this acquisition is consistent with that.

“Continued consolidation in the service provider space creates the need for strong suppliers,” said Philippe Tartavull, CEO of Comverse. “Our acquisition of Acision underscores Comverse’s commitment to quickly building scale and market leadership in the fast-growing digital services sector.

“This acquisition creates a formidable platform for innovation that is expected to serve our customers’ current and evolving needs.  Acision brings a diverse portfolio of mobile monetization and rich enterprise messaging solutions complementing Comverse’s market leading digital services platform. The combined portfolio will allow us to enable our service provider and enterprise customers to deliver and monetize a new array of advanced digital services to their customers.”

“Today’s acquisition is in line with our growth strategy to broaden our reach and capabilities, and brings two leading companies together to deliver the very latest monetizable, rich communication services for mobile operators and enterprises worldwide,” said Didier Bench, Executive Chairman at Acision.

There was the standard M&A talk about synergies and complementary markets, but that does ring true with this move. While the value to respective shareholders will only be demonstrated over time, the combined operations do seem to offer a more compelling mobile monetization story. Comverse announced losses of around $27 million for the quarter ending April 30 today, which was worse than had been expected.

About the Author(s)

Scott Bicheno

As the Editorial Director of Telecoms.com, Scott oversees all editorial activity on the site and also manages the Telecoms.com Intelligence arm, which focuses on analysis and bespoke content.
Scott has been covering the mobile phone and broader technology industries for over ten years. Prior to Telecoms.com Scott was the primary smartphone specialist at industry analyst Strategy Analytics’. Before that Scott was a technology journalist, covering the PC and telecoms sectors from a business perspective.
Follow him @scottbicheno

You May Also Like