Sierra Wireless has announced it is to acquire Numerex, a provider of machine to machine communications, for $107 million (£81.5m), as it bolsters its customer base and sales capacity.
The move, Sierra said, will bolster its position in the global Internet of Things (IoT) market, as well as providing an experienced sales team and channel and accelerates the company’s ‘IoT device to cloud’ strategy.
“We believe that the combination of Sierra Wireless and Numerex result in a powerful business and technology platform that would enable us to drive a global leadership position in IoT services and solutions,” said Jason Cohenour, CEO of Sierra Wireless in a call with analysts, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha.
The company had previously acquired FlowThings in the most recent quarter – a move which went somewhat under the radar at the time – as Cohenour confirmed when discussing second quarter results. The Sierra CEO added that the acquisition of Numerex would help the company further in achieving its goals of hitting more than $1 billion in annual revenue, as well as have more than 10% of its revenue coming from recurring IoT services.
The company hit $173.5 million in the most recent quarter, an increase of 11.1% from this time last year. Guidance for the third quarter is revenue between $167m and $175m, and while stock dipped in the aftermath of the results, Steve Symington, writing for The Motley Fool, said analysts should not be too concerned. “If all goes as planned, the acquisition [of Numerex] should only bolster Sierra Wireless’ central role as a leader in the burgeoning Internet of Things space,” wrote Symington.
