In a recent move that left some analysts scratching their heads, Ericsson plans to acquire The New Jersey-based Vonage Holdings for about $6.2 billion, representing the Swedish vendor’s biggest acquisition to date.
Vonage was founded in 2001 as a VoIP provider for consumers and grew into a cloud communications provider focused on businesses. In 2020, it reported revenues of $1.25 billion.
To hear Ericsson tell it, the deal will give it access to more than 1 million developers and a foot into an enterprise market expected to reach $700 billion* by 2030. In addition to consumer use cases, 5G is really designed for enterprises and it can make wireless the primary choice of their connectivity, according to Ericsson President and CEO Börje Ekholm.