We knew it was inevitable as the messaging space becomes more competitive, and fring is the first to experience an acquisition. Luckily, however, the app isn’t heading toward the chopping block of yesterday.
Genband, the company that has acquired fring’s Over-the-Top (OTT) mobile IP communications service for consumers for as-of-yet undisclosed financial terms, apparently has long term plans for the application and plans to add fring to its portfolio of communications services, which also include cloud communications, 4G voice, and WebRTC.
“fring is one of the pioneers that helped change the way consumers communicate on-thego and is perfectly aligned with our trategy to bring service providers rich, simple-to-use, mobile communications solutions,” said David Walsh, CEO of GENBAND. “The fring team and technology enhance our ability to serve our customer base of over 700 service providers around-the-world, fortifying them with a proven platform they can white-label to bring their own brand of OTT services to subscribers.”
“Combining fring’s solutions with GENBAND’s global reach, engineering expertise and complementary cloud service offerings changes the game for service providers,” said Roy Timor-Rousso, former CEO of fring and currently a senior executive in GENBAND’s Multimedia Business Unit. “After early successes licensing our solutions to a number of wireless and other carriers, we recognize the power of combining with GENBAND.”
The company suggests it will be particularly valuable to fixed operators and cable companies who are looking to enter the OTT market and as an alternative to expensive roaming charges. The acquisition also helps fring, which has 4 million users on iOS and Android, expand globally as it looks for footing to compete with a host of other VoIP and messaging apps on the market.
We’ve reached out to both Genband and Fring for additional comments and will update this article accordingly.
Update: Bloomberg reports that Genband reportedly paid $50 million USD for Fring.