The purchase of Tawasul, which has a strong network presence in the Middle East, UK and Singapore and offices in 5 major countries, sees Kalaam strengthen its position in the GCC and international market.
The deal is Kalaam’s third acquisition over the past four years, with its last major agreement to buy Lightspeed from Orange in 2014 – a deal which consolidated Kalaam’s position in its home market.
Announcing the acquisition, Kalaam Telecom’s CEO, Veer Passi said, “Most enterprises today, are looking for a single solutions provider to meet all their communication needs. With this acquisition, we will be equipped to meet those demands and will enable us to offer our customers easy-to-procure, fast and pan-GCC solutions over a single agreement. Our customers look to us for expertise, innovation, and managed services. We try to deliver on these expectations every time.”
The multi-million dollar deal, which was for an undisclosed fee, will help create “important synergies” across the two organisations, Kalaam said. It will begin offering a combined portfolio of services including regional and international connectivity, software-defined network (SDN) solutions, cloud, security, and managed IT.
Kalaam offers a number of wholesale solutions, including global MPLS, Ethernet, IP transit and voice. For enterprises, it also offers express routes and AWS services, and launched an SD-WAN offering last year.
The acquisition makes Kalaam a regional telecom service provider with 40% of revenues from Bahrain, and 60% from other countries in the Gulf, and internationally, it said when the deal was first announced in May.
The combined entities will serve the enterprise market in Bahrain and throughout the Gulf with more than 3,000 enterprise customers. It also boosts Kalaam’s employee base, from 85 to more than 130.
The group will have 16 points of presence (POPs), and offices in five countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the UK.
Speaking about the acquisition at the press conference, Nezar Al Saie, Chairman of Kalaam Telecom, said, “This is a major milestone, a transformational step for Kalaam Telecom. Acquiring Tawasul is in line with our company’s vision of expanding regionally and internationally to further support the fast-growing telecom and ICT sector.”
