Indian outsourcing firm Wipro has acquired its European rival Cellent for US$80 million, apparently to bolster its service offerings for customers in German-speaking countries. The acquisition adds 800 IT consultants to Wipro in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Cellent, which reported about $92 million in revenue in 2014, has a handful of customers in the DACH region, home to a large number of global manufacturing and automotive companies. The company’s website lists 46 customers, including the likes of Carl Zeiss, pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, software company SAP, auto maker Daimler and industrial giant Siemens.
“This acquisition will provide Wipro with significant scale and prime customer relationships, especially in the manufacturing and automotive domains, which are key industry sectors in the DACH region,” Wipro said in a press release.
The Bangalore-based outsourcer says the DACH market is a strategic growth and investment region for the company. According to Information Services Group (ISG), DACH region is the second-largest outsourcing market in Europe. . In the quarter ended September 30, Europe contributed about a quarter of Wipro’s IT services revenue.
“Cellent is a well-established player with marquee customers, a well-known brand and has strong local talent. cellent will significantly boost our footprint in the DACH region,” said N.S. Bala, Chief Executive, Manufacturing and Hi-Tech, at Wipro.
Cellent will not be merged into Wipro even after the deal closes; instead it will serve as a stand-alone entity of the Indian BPO provider.
IT outsourcing market in Europe is seeing a sudden surge, luring several Indian outsourcing firms to expand operations. In October of this year, Delhi-based HCL Technologies acquired Volvo’s external IT business. A month later it landed an outsourcing contract with Deutsche Bank, one of the biggest global banks headquartered in Europe.
Moreover, according to ISG, as many as 1,400 deals in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) region, worth over $14bn, will come up for renewal by 2019.
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