Telecom network vendor Ericsson will acquire the telecom business of Sunrise Technology, a Guangzhou, China-based IT services provider in the operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) space.
Ericsson did not reveal the size of the acquisition.
To increase presence in the OSS BSS market, earlier Ericsson acquired companies such as Telcordia in 2012), TeleOSS and Telcocell in 2013, GEOSS in 2014 and TimelessMIND in 2015.
The strategy of Ericsson is to expand its presence in China. Several Chinese mobile operators – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – are in the process of spending on IT to transform its business.
Nearly 1,000 employees of the telecom business of Sunrise Technology, which offers complex IT solutions to mobile operators in China, will join Ericsson by Q2 2015. These employees have expertise in IT consulting; systems integration for charging and billing systems, customer relationship management and business intelligence / analytics solutions; and application development and maintenance, said Ericsson.
China is the world’s biggest mobile market in terms of number of subscriptions, with 1.285 billion. Comparing with China, India has nearly 900 million mobile subscribers.
“Most of the country’s telecom operators are at the beginning of their IT transformation journeys, and will soon replace their legacy IT systems with next-generation solutions that will enable them to launch digital offerings,” said Magnus Mandersson, executive vice president and head of Business Unit Global Services at Ericsson.
Sunrise Technology’s telecom business will be integrated with Ericsson’s Global Services business, which employs 65,000 employees in 180 countries. Sunrise Technology will continue to exist as a separate entity – serving customers in sectors other than telecom.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
