Verizon is to buy the Irish-based GPS vehicle-tracking firm Fleetmatics Group for about $2.4 billion (€2.1 billion) in cash to bolster its expansion into the connected vehicle and fleet management market.
Verizon, the No 1 US wireless company, will pay $60 per share, a premium of about 40% to Fleetmatics' closing price on Wall St on Friday.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year.
Fleetmatics, with Irish headquarters in Tallaght in Dublin, develops software that shows fleet operators vehicle location, fuel usage, speed, mileage and other information on their mobile workforce, including a driver's behavioural data.
Fleetmatics was founded in Templeogue in Dublin in 2004 when it employed 10 people.
The company floated on the New York Stock Exchange four years ago.
Following the deal, shares in Fleetmatics soared 39% to $59.60 while Verizon dipped 0.7% to $55.01.
As the market for smartphones and mobile devices gets saturated, Verizon and its biggest rival, AT&T, are hoping that connecting more objects to their networks will provide new revenue.
The acquisition helps Verizon capture market share in the "highly fragmented and pretty under-penetrated" fleet and mobile workforce management business, Andrés Irlando, chief executive officer of Verizon Telematics, said in an interview.
The unit connects vehicles to its wireless network and offers applications to track and manage them.
On Friday, Verizon Telematics closed another deal, to buy California-based Telogis, which builds software to track commercial vehicles and navigation software used by carmakers such as Ford.
Verizon Telematics also offers its own fleet management service, called "Networkfleet".
In May, Fleetmatics posted revenue of $78.9m for the first quarter, up 21% from a year earlier.
