Swedish technology company Ericsson has reached an agreement to acquire Cradlepoint, a US provider of 4G and 5G wireless solutions for enterprises, for USD 1.1 billion in cash. 

Ericsson buys Cradlepoint company

Ericsson is a Swedish provider of technology and services to telecommunications operators. It offers technologies 2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks, and provides support for networks with more than 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecommunications services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. 

Ericsson is part of the Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson companies that provide consumers with personal mobile devices. Ericsson aims to be the main driver in a fully connected world through innovation, technology and sustainable business solutions. 

Cradlepoint founded in 2006, is a privately held US company that provides a cloud-based network solution for connecting people, places and things over wired and wireless broadband. Cradlepoint NetCloud is a software and services platform that extends the company's multifunctional 4G LTE routers and resilient M2M/IoT gateways with cloud-based management and software-defined network services. 

With Cradlepoint, customers can leverage the speed and economics of wired and wireless Internet broadband for branch office, failover, mobile and IoT networks, while maintaining end-to-end visibility, security and control. Leading service providers use Cradlepoint's network solutions as the foundation for innovative managed service offerings. 

Ericsson says buying Cradlepoint is key to its ongoing strategy of capturing market share in the rapidly expanding 5G enterprise segment and will complement its own portfolio of solutions for this market. In doing so, it will create new customer revenue streams by generating full 5G-enabled services for enterprises and boosting the return on network investments.