Vodacom has announced that it plans to acquire a 51% share in IoT.nxt to enhance its current Internet of Things offering.<\/p>\n
The Centurion-based ICT group was founded by Nico Steyn in 2015 and has grown to become a leading provider of IoT solutions in South Africa.<\/p>\n
According to the Vodacom group’s preliminary results for the year ending March 2019, IoT connections continue to gain momentum in South Africa with a 24.4% growth in customers to 4.5 million.<\/p>\n
“Our acquisition of IoT.nxt, with their unique edge technology and tech-agnostic platform, plays a significant role in solving the challenges of legacy systems that have limitations of integration,” said Vodacom Group CEO, Shameel Joosub.<\/p>\n
“(The acquisition) will position Vodacom extremely well in being the digitalisation partner of choice for customers, beyond connectivity.”<\/p>\n
Steyn told MyBroadband that the acquisition of the company will not change the way it operates, and they will maintain their agility in the market.<\/p>\n
The IoT.nxt brand will also remain, said Steyn.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur brand stays the same, and we will are still able to do business with anyone,\u201d said Steyn.<\/p>\n
Besides a capital injection, the deal with Vodacom will give the company strategic leverage \u2013 including access to Vodacom and Vodafone\u2019s global operations, said Steyn.<\/p>\n
The transaction is subject to the approval of the Competition Commission.<\/p>\n