Bridgestone Europe NV/SA, a subsidiary of the Bridgestone Corporation’s EMEA business, has entered into an agreement with TomTom to acquire its telematics business, for a cash consideration of €910 million ($1.03 billion).
The transaction will bring Bridgestone together with the provider of digital fleet solutions in Europe, creating a data platform for connected vehicles. Bridgestone said the acquisition will help boost its mobility solutions leadership in the region. The combination of both companies’ offerings will allow Bridgestone to cross-sell tires and solutions to a larger customer base. Access to TomTom data will also allow the tiremaker to enhance its virtual tire development and testing as well as connected tire innovation.
“We have found our perfect match in TomTom Telematics. Our complementary assets and capabilities will create a fleet solutions powerhouse and will further strengthen Bridgestone’s digital technology arm,” said Paolo Ferrari, CEO and president of Bridgestone EMEA and executive vice president of Bridgestone Group. “Beyond scale, there would be considerable benefits by complementing our offerings, allowing us, among many other opportunities, to sell tires and solutions across our customers. We are now well-positioned in EMEA to accelerate our data-driven business, expand our fleet customer base and seize fast-growing, profitable opportunities in the automotive mobility industry.”
Ferrari said, “it’s our intention to foster and grow the business and support its current plans” as well as “respect the talent and skill of TomTom Telematics’ management team and its 670 employees.”
New social, economic and technological megatrends are pushing the pace of change in the automotive industry and the future of vehicles is connected, autonomous, shared and electric. In that context, Bridgestone has identified digital mobility solutions and fleet solutions as a strategic priority. This is reinforced by the growing importance of fleets over individually-owned vehicles for transportation of people and goods. Increasing demand in the transportation industry means that fleet owners and managers need to maximize productivity and minimize total cost of ownership more than ever.
This latest investment builds on previous work at Bridgestone to strengthen its digital capabilities in EMEA. Specifically, the company has built capabilities in data collection from sensors, data platforms and analytics. This has resulted in the launch of a range of digital solutions and applications such as Tirematics, Mobox, FleetPulse and Bridgestone Connect.
Bridgestone said TomTom Telematics fits strategically as it has a large and growing installed user base of 860,000 vehicles of which more than two thirds are commercial. It has a tailored go-to-market system and a premium digital offering including WebFleet and NextFleet. Its technologies based on data analytics rely on an open, scalable, secure and cloud-based platform, and it handles on average over 800 million GPS positions, 3.3 million trips, and 200 million inbound messages per day.
“After a thorough review of multiple strategic options, we have determined that the sale of TomTom Telematics to Bridgestone is in the best interest of both TomTom Telematics and our core location technology business,” said Harold Goddijn, CEO of TomTom. “We will continue to invest in our innovative map-making system, enabling faster map updates while lowering operational costs, paving the road towards autonomous driving.”
