The companies said that, under the partnership, which was signed in Madrid, the two companies will have access to each other’s networks and deploy their IoT services.
Vicente Muñoz, chief IoT officer at Telefónica, said: “We are leveraging IoT technologies to accompany our customers on their digital transformation journey, where IoT has a very important role to play.”
The agreement will allow the enterprise customers of each company “to use the best IoT technologies and accelerate the deployment of global IoT connectivity solutions in their businesses”, said Telefónica.
Customers of Telefónica and China Unicom will be able to deploy IoT products and services seamlessly in China, Europe and Latin America with a single global IoT SIM card.
“Using a unified IoT connectivity management platform they will be able to control connections globally and to localise IoT SIMs once they reach a geography, complying with GSMA standards,” said Telefónica.
Muñoz added: “Simplifying massive IoT deployments is key and therefore we are strengthening our ecosystem of partners. Our partnership with China Unicom will strengthen Telefónica’s capability to meet our global customer needs.”
