Bridgestone Europe buys TomTom Telematics in €910m mobility deal

The telematics business of data provider TomTom is to be snapped up by the European arm of Bridgestone in a €910m cash deal. Part of the Bridgestone Corporation tyre empire, Bridgestone Europe says the deal will speed up its “journey to becoming a mobility solutions leader in the region”. Bridgestone is making fleet solutions a “strategic priority”. In a statement, the company said: “New social, economic and technological megatrends are pushing the pace of change in the automotive industry and the fut
February 1, 2019 Read time: 2 mins
The telematics business of data provider 1692 TomTom is to be snapped up by the European arm of Bridgestone in a €910m cash deal.


Part of the Bridgestone Corporation tyre empire, Bridgestone Europe says the deal will speed up its “journey to becoming a mobility solutions leader in the region”.

Bridgestone is making fleet solutions a “strategic priority”. In a statement, the company said: “New social, economic and technological megatrends are pushing the pace of change in the automotive industry and the future of vehicles is connected, autonomous, shared and electric.”

Bridgestone has diversified from the rubber products for which it is best-known into data collection from sensors, data platforms and analytics.

It cites the “growing importance of fleets over individually-owned vehicles for transportation of people and goods” as the catalyst for the acquisition, suggesting that fleet owners require better tools to maximise productivity and minimise total cost of ownership.
Paolo Ferrari, CEO of Bridgestone EMEA, says: “We are now well-positioned in EMEA to accelerate our data-driven business, expand our fleet customer base and seize fast-growing, profitable opportunities in the automotive mobility industry.”

TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn said his company would continue to develop mapping products, “enabling faster map updates while lowering operational costs, paving the road towards autonomous driving”.

TomTom Telematics claims an installed user base of 860,000 vehicles, more than two-thirds of which are commercial. The company says it handles each day on average 800 million GPS positions, 3.3 million trips and 200 million inbound messages.

Location Based Systems

Related Content

  • March 24, 2025
    UX: No-one gets left behind
    As transportation agencies prepare for a digital evolution, they need to be thinking about more than just transport to make sure users can all be on the journey too, suggests RideFlag Technologies…
    Read More
  • August 19, 2015
    Costing transit is complicated case
    David Crawford welcomes fresh thinking from Canada. Public transit improvements can bring society “significantly more value” than conventional transport models normally indicate, argues Canadian researcher Todd Litman. “Traditional evaluation practices originally developed to assess roadway improvements, and focus primarily on vehicle travel speeds and operating costs. “They do not generally quantify or monetise basic mobility benefits, vehicle ownership and parking cost savings, or efficient land developme
    Read More
  • January 26, 2012
    What's next for traffic management and data collection?
    As the technologies and stakeholders in traffic management evolve, what can we expect to see happening in the coming years? For many, the conversation of the moment is just how, and how far, the newer technologies and services provided principally by the private sector should be allowed to intrude into the realms of traffic management.
    Read More
  • November 23, 2018
    Vision technology: the future in focus
    Just a few years ago, terms such as ‘embedded’ and ‘polarisation’ were buzzwords. But now they are real and present examples of vision technology in action – and, Adam Hill finds, the ITS industry is waking up to a number of possible applications Every aspect of the intelligent transportation systems industry moves quickly – but developments in camera technology change with a rapidity which can appear quite bewildering. And with ITS providers constantly searching for an edge against fierce competitio
    Read More

Highlighted Content