Sobha Renaissance Information Technology, providers of outsourced IT business services and software products in HealthCare, Telecoms and the Enterprise space, has acquired Munich-based Billing Components AG. This strengthens SRIT’s offering in the Telecoms Operational and Business domain.
Billing Components AG are the creators of software components for the telecoms market in the areas of customer care, billing & collections, rating, usage collection, provisioning and inter-carrier reconciliation and settlements. The exact value of the acquisition was, however, not revealed.
According to a release, SRIT said this multimillion Euro acquisition will expand its offerings in providing several business software solutions to all kinds of Telecommunication and Communication Service Providers. Be it the Telematics, GSM, CDMA, Fixed Wireline, IP, VoIP, Wimax, 3G, GPRS or UMTS service providers. SRIT CEO Madhu Nambiar said: »This acquisition brings in marquee customers like T-Mobile, Eronet, Vodafone-Si.mobil, Cosmoron, Thales in France, United Kingdom, USA, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Australia, Bahrain and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Market Opportunity
According to Gartner & IDC, the market for third-party telecom software and services is expected to reach $4 billion in 2006 and grow to $11.5 billion by 2009, a CAGR of 23.5%. This growth will be driven by technological change, adoption of new services, regulation and consolidation. Additionally, according to Mr. Nambiar, while the above growth is specific to the North American markets, in so far as markets outside the US, the regulatory & technology changes trigger a growing market for interconnection services that have traditionally centered around the data exchange by US carriers with other US carriers. Number portability and equal access regulatory rules are being implemented in other countries such as Canadian Number Portability (expected in 2007), privatisation in Europe and equal access regulation in England. All these would create requirements for global interconnection services. Thus, the international opportunity would, in fact, exceed the North American opportunity for companies providing such kind of solutions.
Bullish
When contacted, SRIT Director for Business, N. J. Joseph said, that the company’s software and services enable its customers to manage, execute and provision with the highest degree of automation, order accuracy, and streamlined flow-through in the industry. The company ultimately offers carriers and enterprises significant savings in their daily operations as a result of improved operational cost structure, thereby improving their competitive advantage.
Billing Components AG has been selling its solutions to carriers since 1991, and is led by a team of highly experienced and expert German & Indian Telecom technology executives.
Growth Drivers
Susil Tharian, SRIT Director for Mergers & Acquisitions said, that the marketplace for telecommunications interconnect, clearing house, and OSS software and services is driven by the adoption of new technologies, new service offerings, changes to existing telecommunication services, regulation, and increasing demand to be able to deliver these services at increasingly lower costs. He cited the adoption of VoIP by the U.S. market as an example. The subscribers are expected to grow from 1.1million at the end of 2004 to 17.7 million by 2007, a compound annual growth rate of 155.4% (source: IDC). Demand for advanced wireless services is expected to grow from 210 million subscribers in 2005 to 288 million subscribers in 2008, a compound annual growth rate of 11.1% (source: TIA). Annual wireless subscriber churn rates of 20-30% still continues to present a problem for wireless carriers, but represents significant opportunity for SRIT and other companies offering new service requests.
Demand for New Services
According to Mr. Nambiar, as the telecom industry is undergoing significant changes, it is forcing operators to refine their approach to competing in an expanding but aggressive market. Based on its long-standing and extensive market know-how, Billing Components AG has identified »mobile business « as the key growth driver. Due to the technical introduction of 2.5G (GPRS) and 3G (UMTS), the change from mere voice-based services to a multi-layered utilization of voice and data services has begun taking place. Given that investments for 3G licenses are sometimes exorbitantly high, and competition increasingly fierce, the network service providers has no option but to review their cost structure prudently.
Growth Strategy
When contacted, Mr. PNC Menon, Chairman of the Sobha Group of Companies was categorical in stating that SRIT is tracking to its growth plans, and a major part of its growth strategy will be driven through well thought-out, carefully planned and objectively analyzed acquisitions in the HealthCare, Telecoms & Enterprise space.
About Billing Components AG
Billing Components AG of Munich, Germany, is an international telecom software company, producing software components for the telecommunications market. The company delivers customer specific telecom solutions in Customer Care, Billing & Collections, Rating, Usage Collection, Provisioning and Inter-Carrier Accounting and provides operating and consulting services. The billing solution is successfully in production at 8 international customer sites. For more information, please visit http://www.billing-components.com.
About Sobha Renaissance Information Technology
Sobha Renaissance Information Technology (SRIT) is a CMM Level 5 and SSE-CMM Level 5, global IT solutions company providing advanced, enterprise-class solutions to Fortune 500 companies. SRIT focuses on Application Software Development Services (hybrid onsite-offshore development model) across industry verticals and productized solutions in the Healthcare, Telecoms and the Total Enterprise space. SRIT is a SOBHA Group company. Founded in 1975, the SOBHA Enterprise is, today, a US $ 1.2 billion group, with about 8500 people and US $ 227 in annual revenues. For more information, please visit http://www.renaissance-it.com.