Telecom network vendor Ericsson announced its deal to acquire Icon Americas, an IT services firm in billing and charging (OSS/BSS) areas for telecoms, to boost its Latin American business.

The strategy of Ericsson is to expand its consulting and systems integration services and OSS/BSS solutions in the Latin American telecom market by adding 250 employees of Icon Americas that have experience of working with telecom customers in the region.

Pyramid Research in its recent telecom analysis report said mobile subscriptions rose to 735 million in Latin America at the end of 2014. The number of mobile handsets sold in Latin America was 200 million were sold and 62 percent were smartphones.

Guatemala-based Icon Americas specializes in providing application development and maintenance (ADM) services. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015, said Ericsson in a statement.

Sergio Quiroga da Cunha, head of Ericsson Region Latin America and Caribbean, said: “IT services is an area of strategic importance to Ericsson. The acquisition of Icon Americas will improve our ability to provide IT and ADM services to customers in Latin America, strengthening our position in OSS/BSS.”

As per its long term strategy, Ericsson aims to be the leading provider of ICT services and solutions. Over the years, Ericsson has made a number of strategic acquisitions to boost its IT services capabilities.

Ericsson has 16,000 consulting and systems integration professionals who together deliver more than 1,500 consulting, systems integration and learning services projects each year.

Baburajan K
[email protected]