Australian incumbent telco Telstra has agreed to buy satellite media services provider Globecast Australia to continue its Asia-focused acquisition strategy
Globecast Australia provides media services for broadcasters across Australasia, primarily over…
Australian incumbent telco Telstra has agreed to buy satellite media services provider Globecast Australia to continue its Asia-focused acquisition strategy
Globecast Australia provides media services for broadcasters across Australasia, primarily over satellite platforms, and also delivers DTH transmission and IPTV managed services.
It is half owned by French telco Orange, which has a satellite services subsidiary called Globecast that is present in the US, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Private Australian shareholders own the other 50% of Globecast Australia.
Martijn Blanken, Telstra’s group managing director for global sales, said the deal gives the group deeper capabilities in media services to meet increasing demand for live distribution.
“Its strong linkages between its domestic networking capabilities and international points of media connectivity fit with our strategy of providing global media networking capabilities,” Blanken said.
Globecast Australia has about 50 members of staff. It claims to have the largest digital satellite news and sport gathering fleet in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
Telstra’s satellite business includes telecoms and pay-TV broadcast services.
The transaction is subject to the approval of the country’s ACCC regulator.
It comes shortly after Telstra confirmed it was in talks to buy Asia-focused data centre and undersea cable operator Pacnet, which has reportedly been seeking a US$1bn valuation.
Telstra’s CEO David Thodey said in October that his company was looking to use a war chest of up to A$5.1bn (US$4.5bn) to expand in Asia.
Its expansion drive comes amid a sea-change in Australia, which is in the middle of deploying telecoms services to all the country’s premises through the National Broadband Network (NBN), a public-private partnership.
Australian ISP TPG Telecom agreed a US$1.1bn deal earlier this month to take over its local rival iiNet, aimed at creating the country’s second-largest fixed-line provider, behind Telstra.
That deal came just months after smaller telcos Vocus and Amcom announced they would merge to gain scale in the market.
* Update 20 March – Telstra snaps up video analytics firm Gorilla Technology *
Telstra followed up the deal with an undisclosed equity investment in Taiwanese video analytics specialist Gorilla Technology.
Gorilla’s products convert raw video into searchable data, and Telstra International’s president Tim Chen said it would benefit its retail, security, broadcast and government customers.
“Telstra’s equity investment in Gorilla Technology Group will also allow the company to integrate its software into our network, and provide Gorilla the opportunity to resell the integrated solution to enterprise and government customers worldwide through our international connectivity and data centres,” Chen said.
“Gorilla Technology Group will also provide storage using Telstra’s Cloud solutions to its customers world-wide.”
