Japan-based Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), recently in the local headlines for its £2.1 billion buy-out of Dimension Data, has announced yet another acquisition.
The company's international and service arm, NTT Communications, will acquire security consulting and managed services company Secode, based in the northern European Nordic countries. The terms of the deal have not yet been announced.
NTT Communications will acquire all shares of Secode through NTT Communications Deutschland, its wholly owned subsidiary in Germany.
The company will fold Secode's security operation centres (SOCs) in Sweden and Norway into its existing group of SOCs in Japan, Germany, Singapore and the US, the latter three of which were added in October 2009, when NTT Communications acquired a majority stake in Integralis, in Germany.
Aggressive strategy
The news comes after NTT surprised the local ICT industry by announcing its plans to acquire Dimension Data. The move was seen as a mutually beneficial one, as it sought to create one of the world's largest integrated telecoms and technology groups.
Independent ICT analyst Paul Booth says the marriage between the world's second-largest telecoms company and DiData would enable NTT to enter the African market, which will be the first major inroad onto the continent by a Japanese company.
Booth explains, however, that NTT will remain in the number two spot, as buying out DiData is not significant enough to make it bigger than AT&T. DiData turns over about 45% of NTT's revenue each year.
Booth says the deal will take NTT into places around the globe where it previously had small operations. He explains Japanese companies do not have a large presence in the European and US markets, and NTT will be able to leverage off DiData's presence in those markets.
The buy-out will make NTT “much more of a real global player”, says Booth, pointing out that its operations have been focused on the Far East. “This is in many ways a new venture in terms of getting out of its comfort zones.”
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