Sasken To Enter Service Provider Space

Chennai/ Bangalore: Sasken Communication Technologies is now looking at becoming a service provider to telecom operators. The company designs telecom software and hardware on its own account and also as a service. For this the Bangalore-based company, which made two acquisitions during the fiscal 2006-07, is actively considering acquiring a company in this space to fill up certain technology gaps. Sasken is understood to be talking to four-five companies in North America for acquisitions with a focus on Mexico, Chicago and Dallas regions. The company intends to provide information, commissioning support, planning of radio frequency, deployment of base stations and network infrastructure, and consulting services on evolving a network.

Sasken is looking for acquisitions of firms in the range of $10-30 million. The company expects its revenue from service to become 10 per cent of the total revenues in the next two years. As of March 31 last, the company had cash reserves of about Rs 70 crore. Cash is not an issue. In July last year, the company acquired Finnish firm Botnia Hightech for Euro 35.5 million. The acquisition has helped the firm have about 300 people in Finland. Sasken Finland Oy, Sasken''s subsidiary in Finland contributed over 20 per cent to Sasken''s revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006-07. In April last year, Sasken had acquired Chennai-based iSoftTech that works in data networking space, for around Rs 5 crore.