Opera Telecom, the fastest growing international provider of premium rate mobile services, has today announced its acquisition of Aria Mobile Telecoms, the Dublin-based mobile technology infrastructure specialist. This follows the company’s recent announcement that it has acquired MMS technology provider, Brainstorm.
Aria Mobile Telecoms was formed in 2003 in a joint venture between Opera Telecom and Diva Consulting. Recent negotiations have resulted in Opera Telecom taking 100% ownership of the organisation, re-branding the business as Opera Telecom Technologies Limited. The company will continue to trade out of its Dublin offices.
Opera Telecom Technologies Limited will offer the complete mobile technology infrastructure package – from IVR software and database management to billing and delivery, website administration and content – to media companies worldwide. The company’s Gateway product is a fully featured Messaging Management system that is built to support high volumes of SMS traffic. Its main deployment is in Central and South America and will give the Opera Telecom Group a strong foothold into the Latin American market.
Gary Corbett, Managing Director of the Opera Telecom Group, comments, “The acquisition of Aria extends our unique proposition to media organisations as they no longer need to enter into local agreements with content suppliers, infrastructure and technology providers and website designers or country-specific regulatory organisations to satisfy royalty responsibilities – the acquisition of Aria means that Opera will fulfil all of these requirements on an international basis.”
He continues, “Our original stake in Aria allowed us to rapidly expand our customer base in Europe, US and Asia-Pacific. Latin America is now a major growth market for us, with an estimated total of 123 million mobile users, compared with only 89 million fixed line customers [Source: Research and Markets Ltd]. With this figure increasing rapidly and with such a strong sales proposition, now is the optimum time to be entering the market.”
Opera Telecom Group recently announced its year end financial results, reporting a record turnover of £90.4m with £5.4m profit and demonstrating the company’s continued success over the past 12 months at a time when many competitors have issued profit warnings and lost market share. Over the next 18 months Opera Telecom will be considering acquisitions and partnerships with other key players in the market to ensure this success continues.
Corbett concludes, “By having such advanced technology platforms we are able to guarantee superior performance of high volume mobile marketing campaigns. There really isn’t anyone that has such an extensive offering in the market, nor one that performs so reliably and consistently to make sure that every message reaches its intended recipient.”