Azuga, a fleet operating platform was acquired by Bridgestone as the company announced. The acquisition was done for $391 million in cash and stock. Bridgestone will now have ownership of all of Azuga’s assets and will integrate Azuga’s team including its CEO into their mobility solutions division.
This deal was made with a view to change Bridgestone’s focus to technology and logistics services. Through this, the company is hoping to increase its global revenue by 25% by 2025. While the mobility and transportation services were deeply affected by the pandemic, Bridgestone is taking a brave step towards its future in fleet management and telematics space. This area is expected to go beyond $10 million in the U.S. in the coming 3 to 5 years.
Azuga is based in San Jose, California, and was founded in 2013 by Rani. It incorporates GPS, vehicle diagnostics, and driver rewards for better vehicle fleets. It also helps to record things like driving behaviour, fuel consumption, accident risk along with miles, stops, and alerts for vehicles and drivers. Insurance companies could also make use of the platform to collect relevant data. The company also claims that it works together with various government agencies, states, and municipalities in certain services. On its website, the company explains that “Through our distributed cloud computing environment, we are bringing advanced statistical modeling and predictive analytics to enterprise, industrial, insurance, and government customers that aids product design, infrastructure management, risk assessment, and operations management.”
The incorporation of telematics into the transportation industry has yielded better results in the fleet management system.
