Italian-American IoT module maker Telit has followed up its deal for the cellular IoT division of French firm Thales with the purchase of California-based custom IoT solutions startup Mobilogix for an undisclosed fee. The acquisition has closed already, said Telit. Mobilogix will make Telit an “end-to-end” IoT provider, furthering its development beyond straight module releases, according to the parties involved and market watchers.
Mobilogix adds IoT device design and engineering capabilities to “streamline new and existing customer projects — reducing business risk, project time, cost, and complexity”, said Telit in a statement. Writing in a LInkedIn post, Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research, called it a “more ambitious move” for Telit to offer a “more integrated” portfolio and establish itself as “one of the largest end-to-end white-labelled IoT solutions providers outside of China”.
Telit will be renamed Telit Cinterion when the Thales buy is finalised in the fourth quarter, taking its new brand appendage from the Thales line of cellular IoT modules (which took the name originally from German M2M specialist Cinterion, following its purchase by Gemalto in 2014, in turn acquired by Thales in 2019). Telit Cinterion will be a “leading Western” power for IoT modules, said Telit following the deal in July.
The Telit/Thales merger-purchase, which will see Thales take a quarter-share in Telit’s expanded industrial IoT business, has kicked off a busy M&A period in the IoT hardware market, with California-based chipmaker Semtech, parent of the the unlicensed LoRa technology, splurging $1.2 billion on Sierra Wireless the same week. Telit’s new deal for Mobilogix confirms its ambition to take the challenge to its China-based counterparts.
Shah commented: “This could be a great alternative for IoT companies who want to diversify and not depend on the Chinese ecosystem and need a tightly integrated solution expertise from one provider.” It also apes the Chinese model to go ‘end-to-end’ with its portfolio, to also cover software and design, and to raise its margins and influence. Shah said: “Chinese brands [are] trying to be more integrated to capture maximum value across the IoT value chain.”
He added: “The entire positioning, offering, business model, and go-to-market [model] is changing in the IoT space as you need to be a large scale and end-to-end player to succeed even though it’s a blue ocean out there.” Telit said the deal adds engineering expertise and resources to optimise “specifications for handoff to electronic manufacturing services, original device manufacturing, and the attainment of regulatory approvals and carrier certifications.”
Also writing on LinkedIn, Manish Watwani, chief product and marketing officer at Telit, said: “We can engage with our customers when they have a business vision. Being able to offer custom IoT project and design services with our hardware, connectivity and platforms portfolio is an opportunity to not only accelerate our customers’ time to market but it also increases overall quality. We have spent decades ensuring all the elements work better together.”
Mathi Gurusamy, chief executive at Mobilogix, commented: “We built Mobilogix into a successful global business with razor sharp focus on creating competitive, custom IoT solutions quickly for customers in verticals like telematics, micro-mobility, healthcare, construction, and agriculture, sourcing modules and connectivity from across the IoT value chain… As part of Telit, we can create these projects faster and reach a much larger market.”
Paolo Dal Pino, chief executive at Telit, said: “[Large and small] companies adopting IoT prefer to start from a business idea or a vision and turn them directly into viable, competitive, ready-to-launch devices and solutions – without taking focus away from their core businesses. We have… modules, connectivity, and platforms at Telit. The addition of the Mobilogix expertise… gives us the ability to build end-to-end custom solutions.”
Mobilogix will relocate personnel and offices into Telit’s new headquarters in Irvine, California.
