In the United States, the mobile market is largely saturated. Aside from a steady base of brand new users coming of the age to own a phone and the occasional carrier-jumper, growth is hard to come by in such a market. While looking to increase the revenue per user is a good strategy to combat growth, a ceiling exists in the form upping prices for customers and making your service a worse value than a competitor. Thus, many a carrier has taken to looking outside of the traditional spaces for sources of revenue. AT&T has bought up DirecTV, Sprint is leasing out network equipment, and Verizon, perhaps the biggest wireless player outside of the wireless field, may be moving into fleet management hardware and software in another attempt to diversify their offerings.
On top of buying up Yahoo for $4.8 billion to work in tandem with AOL and bolster their media and advertising presence, Verizon recently bought out Telogis, a company that helps to outfit vehicles with smart technology, and has announced plans to buy Fleetmatics, a GPS vehicle tracking company. The acquisitions make sense, since fleet management software and hardware could easily leverage Verizon’s network. Real-time reporting of accidents, reckless driving, route deviation and other such incidents via Verizon’s network are just one possibility.
