Mitel is to acquire Mavenir Systems, a provider of software-based networking solutions for mobile carriers, in a $560m deal. The addition of Mavenir solidifies Mitel's UCC portfolio across fixed and mobile environments, and expands its addressable market to a potential $14bn by 2018, and capitalises on the growth of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) as mobile carriers make the move to all IP and 4G services.
The deal also expands Mitel's service provider and mobile operator footprint to over 130 service providers and mobile operators, including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers worldwide, covering two billion subscribers.
"With wireless adoption of IP and 4G LTE and demand for next gen mobile services ramping quickly, we see a compelling opportunity to capitalise on a major market transition to add a high-growth mobile business to Mitel," said Rich McBee, President and CEO of Mitel.
"We believe the combination of Mitel and Mavenir creates a powerful new value proposition for enterprises and mobile service providers, using a common IP technology layer as the foundation for convergence, growth and competitive differentiation."
With an established footprint of over 130 mobile customers including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers worldwide, Mavenir is a key player in 4G LTE mobile solutions and claims a number of 'industry firsts' including the world's first live network deployments of VoLTE and RCS5 with MetroPCS (now T-Mobile); the first mobile network deployment of IMS-based VoWi-Fi (Wi-Fi calling) with T-Mobile US; and the first implementation of Virtualised RCSe with Deutsche Telekom.
The deal gives Mavenir the financial and operational footprint to drive further market expansion of the company's mobile solutions.
Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO, of Mavenir, said: "The move to all-IP LTE mobile networks has created an opportunity for service providers to leverage a converged all-IP network to offer feature-rich business and consumer communication services to any device, anywhere, on any access network.
"We believe that the combined company is positioned to capitalise on the trends within the communications industry today - namely, the convergence across enterprise and mobile networks to all-IP technologies, and the transition to cloud-based unified communications telephony and software-defined virtualised infrastructure."
Mavenir will become the mobile business division of Mitel, operating under the brand Mavenir. Kohli will join Mitel in the role of President, Mavenir, reporting to Rich McBee.