ALK Acquired by Trimble
Trimble announced this week that it has acquired ALK Technologies, a privately-held, 30 years old, 200 employees company that specializes in routing, mapping, mileage and navigation technologies. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed.
“Approximately 64 percent of North American for-hire motor carriers use ALK solutions, including 98 of the top 100 largest for-hire carriers, 47 of the top 50 logistics companies and 77 of the top 100 private fleets,“ wrote Trimble in its press release.
One year ago Barry Glick, CEO of ALK indicated that their B2B business represented 60% of their revenue against 40% for their B2C turn-by-turn navigation solutions on smartphones.
The acquisition of ALK will extend and complement Trimble's Transportation and Logistics product portfolio that already includes TMW Systems' transportation management solutions, PeopleNet's integrated onboard computing and mobile communications systems and GEOTrac's fleet management and worker safety solutions for the oil and gas industry
Trimble’s mobile solution segment represented $218,5 million in revenue (13 percent of total turnover) in 2011. With ALK, Trimble has also acquired a navigable map database for North America that is currently used across all ALK products.
Consumer business?
Looking at the business to business profile of Trimble it is most likely that ALK’s consumer business will be gradually phased down over the next few years as it usually happens with this type of acquisition.