Madrid, Spain & Istanbul, Turkey. April 11, 2012 – Telefónica, through its Telefónica Digital unit, and the Turkish mobile operator Avea, part of Turk Telekom group, have agreed jointly to develop business opportunities in M2M.
The alliance covers technological co-operation, as well as the development of “joint commercial and marketing endeavours.” This will allow them to create economies of scale, with significant cost reductions, and obtain new sources of income thanks to the opening of new markets.
As regards commercial initiatives, the two companies will unite their efforts to develop joint marketing and market analysis strategies and to offer solutions in different geographical regions through the provision of a single SIM card. The scope of the agreement also covers the development of services in fields such as transportation, smart cities, home automation, energy efficiency, mobile healthcare and industry.
The operators will co-operate to promote open standards and the interoperability of machine-to-machine (M2M) systems at an international level. This collaboration will also extend to research and development of M2M technologies and to the joint certification of devices.
Among the objectives of the alliance between Telefónica and Avea is also the widening of the collaboration framework to include a large number of markets, and thus the agreement is open to creating future alliances with other operators. By increasing the scope of the initiative, the goal is to stimulate the sale of this type of services, facilitate their deployment and simplify rates so as to offer a better quality range across the globe.
Carlos Morales (pictured), director of M2M at Telefónica Digital said of this agreement, “There is a huge potential behind the M2M business. This co-operation with Avea will help us in further developing novel vertical solutions and widen our coverage. Telefónica will gain privilege access to the Turkish market whereas Avea will leverage on Telefónica´s capabilities of network coverage, long experience of providing wireless M2M communication solutions and its leading market position in core UE markets and Latin America.”
Kadir Boysan, the chief strategy officer of Avea, commented, “The co-operation will provide all Avea customers, individual and corporate, with access to M2M services at global standards, and ensure the launching of brand new products and services to the market through the support of the R&D activities in Turkey. Being a prominent technology provider in Turkey, we intend to open up a new era in M2M communications for all our customers, individual and corporate, by means of our corporation with Telefónica, a gigantic global telecommunications service provider.”
