Synchronica is one of the most expansive companies in the world of white-label messaging services. After a certain point, I actually stopped reporting on Synchronica news – there was just too much of it. But today, the story has added piquancy to it, because Synchronica has bought out Nokia’s Northern American Operator Branded Messaging business.
What’s the story?
First of all, let’s have a quick recap on what it is that Synchronica does: it provides high-end messaging capabilities to operators. The special thing here is that those 3G messaging services will run on very old networks. It’s a tempting package for smaller, 2G operators in emerging markets: Synchronica will let you run mobile email, Instant Messaging, document sharing and more across incredibly basic infrastructure.
Now, Synchronica has been expanding like crazy over the last few years. It has 80 operator contracts around the world, and with the Nokia acquisition it has a potential customer reach of 1.8 billion. It bought the parts it needed from companies like iseemedia and Colibria, constantly growing the number of services it can offer an operator. But Synchronica has tended to stay in developing regions like Latin America – today sees it moving into the advanced Northern American market in a huge way.
What’s the deal?
Synchronica has indicated that it will buy Nokia’s Operator Branded Messaging business, which provides mobile email, mobile IM and mobile social networking client software to tier-1 mobile operators in North America. The deal immediately provides Synchronica with over 6 million North American users – and it services AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Rogers, Telus and more operators in North America. Synchronica plans to build Nokia’s technology into its own, so they become a converged mobile messaging platform for operators.
According to Money Control, the deal cost Synchronica $25 million: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/worldnews/synchronicatoacquirenokiasobmessagingbizfor3625m_561556.html
What we think?
Nokia and Synchronica already had a healthy relationship – Synchronica is strongest in many of the emerging markets that Nokia is also very strong in. The deal makes sense in a lot of way. Synchronica is on the up-and-up, and has picked the right moment to buy into the Northern American market. But is Nokia going to keep selling bits of itself until all that’s left is a WP7 manufacturing plant?
