Vodafone acquires social networking company ZYB for €31.5 million ($48.7 million)
17 May 2008
Social networking may be the next big thing. That can perhaps explain the extremely high valuations enjoyed by the likes of MySpace and Facebook. Now, the world's largest mobile services operator by revenue, Vodafone, seeks to extend the social networking experience in the mobile phone world with its acquisition of Danish company ZYB for €31.5 million ($48.7 million).
ZYB runs a social networking site focused on cell phone users that allow them to back-up and share their handsets' contact and calendar information online. After completion of the acquisition deal, ZYB would be incorporated into Vodafone's Internet Services Division but will remain based in Denmark.
ZYB is currently working on a new service called Phonebook, which it will launch this quarter. Users will be able to see the location of their friends (if the friends will allow that), see if a contact is available for a call (including the time zone, so no embarrassing wake-up calls) and share their calendars.
Phonebook also integrates with Web-based services for social networking, including Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, according to its website.
At the same time it will keep the features of the existing platform, so users will continue to receive auto-updates of friends' contact details as well as an online back-up of contacts, calendar events, photos and text messages.
Vodafone sees the opportunity to make money from, for example, mobile advertising using ZYB's technology, according to a statement from the operator. strengthen the range of communications services offered by Vodafone.
Additionally, the acquisition would also expand the portfolio of communication services offered by Vodafone currently. By making use of a web portal as a link between the personal computer and the mobile device, ZYB offers up an synergistic mode for people to nurture, contact and expand their contacts and build up links with those contacts' wider networks.
"This acquisition is consistent with our strategy of delivering products and services which meet our customers' total communication needs," Vodafone Group's Internet Services Director Pieter Knook said. ZYB CEO Tommy Ahlers sought to dissuade fears of existing customers by stating that the service will be freely available to all, ''regardless of whether they are customers of Vodafone or any other network operator.''
