The two companies will collaborate to develop opportunities in M2M, financial services, device procurement, cloud computing, video services, digital advertising, eHealth and OTT communications.
In addition, Telefónica and Etisalat will support the efforts of web company Mozilla to develop a mobile operating system to compete with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, the HTML5-based Firefox OS.
As a result of the partnership, Telefónica will increase its addressable digital services market by 17 countries and in excess of 170 million customers.
“Like us, Etisalat recognises the enormous potential of digital services for our sector,” said Matthew Key, chairman and CEO of Telefónica Digital. 'We strongly believe that open collaboration and partnership is the best way of driving innovation and delivering the best products and services to customers across our combined footprints.'
In M2M, the two companies will share technical and platform expertise, co-operate in international M2M roaming and collaborate in bidding processes. The two will also become partners in the delivery of managed M2M services to customers.
On the financial services side, Telefónica and Etisalat will jointly develop m-commerce initiatives, and look at improving customer experience around international mobile transactions.
By combining in the acquisition of video content and global device procurement, the two also believe they will be able to negotiate better pricing on the market.
The agreement develops a strategic partnership first signed between Telefónica and Etisalat in 2011.
