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| Formerly | CLX Communications |
|---|---|
| XSTO: SINCH | |
| Industry | Cloud communications |
| Headquarters | , |
Sinch, formerly CLX Communications, is a telecommunications and cloud communications platform as a service (PaaS) company. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, Sinch also has offices in over 60 cities worldwide, including Atlanta, Chicago, London, Madrid, Singapore and Sydney.
CLX Communications, better known as CLX, was founded in 2008 by Johan Hedberg, Robert Gerstmann, Kristian Männik, Henrik Sandell, Björn Zethraeus and Kjell Arvidsson, [1] [2] [3] as a telecommunications and cloud communications platform as a service (PaaS) company. [4] CLX acquired numerous companies in the industry between 2009 and 2018. [5]
In 2014, CLX acquired Voltari's mobile messaging business in the US and Canada. [6]
After announcing its intention to proceed with an initial public offering (IPO) in September 2015, [7] [8] [9] CLX completed the IPO of its shares and began trading on Nasdaq Stockholm in October 2015, [10] with the introduction price set at SEK 59. [11] The company is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, on the Mid Cap list under the Technology sector. [12]
In 2016 CLX acquired Mblox for US$117 million. [4] [13] [14] [15] At the time, Mblox was one of the largest messaging service providers in the world, delivering 7 billion messages in 2015. [16]
In 2017, CLX acquired German provider Xura Secure Communications GmbH in February 2017,[ citation needed ] and UK-based Dialogue in May 2017. [17] [18]
Also in 2017, CLX entered into a strategic partnership with Google "to provide the next generation of messaging services to brand marketers using Rich Communications Services (RCS) standard embedded directly into consumers' native messaging apps". [19] Part of Google's Early Access Program (EAP), CLX will enable enterprises to build with RCS [20] and be one of the first companies to offer an upgraded messaging experience.
In March 2018, CLX entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Danish company Unwire Communication ApS [21] for DKK 148 million. [22] Upon completion, CLX will become the largest CPaaS provider in the Nordic region. [23] The following month, they announced that they had acquired Seattle-based company Vehicle for US$8 million. [24] [25]
Symsoft was founded in Stockholm in 1989, to supply charging and messaging services to mobile operators.[ citation needed ] The company was initially founded as a consultancy company but shifted focus in the late 1990s to sell products.[ citation needed ] Formerly listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, it provided mobile communications in the areas of Real-Time BSS, SMS and other messaging services, with SS7 security for mobile network operators (MNOs), mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and mobile virtual network enablers (MVNEs).[ citation needed ]
The first deployment of the Symsoft SMS real-time charging was with TeliaMobile, now Telia Company, in Sweden in 1999.[ citation needed ] Building on the Telia case and other early projects relating to mobile messaging and real-time charging Symsoft launched the Symsoft Service Delivery Platform (formerly known as the Nobill platform).[ citation needed ]
In 2009, CLX acquired Symsoft, which then formed the Operator Division of CLX Communications. The division offered software and services to customers in the areas of IoT platforms, real-time BSS, VAS, fraud prevention solutions[ buzzword ] for revenue retention and full-service solutions[ buzzword ] for virtual operators.
As of 2016, Symsoft had experience in upgrading and replacing legacy systems in the areas of BSS, Value Added Services and Security. The company serves mobile operators, MVNOs and MVNEs such as America Móvil, Virgin Mobile, [26] Polkomtel, Saudi Telecom, Simfonics [27] Telefónica, Telia Company, Unify Mobile [28] and 3 in 30+ countries.
Mblox Inc. was a global company that provided a Carrier-grade SaaS-based mobile messaging platform[ buzzword ] to enterprises, including global one-way and two-way SMS, MMS, push notifications, ring-tones, shortcodes and virtual mobile numbers. Mblox Ltd. was founded in 1999, by Andrew Bud in London, England. In 2003, MBlox, Ltd. was acquired by a newly restructured and capitalized Mobilesys, Inc. [29] Founded by David Coelho, the company assumed the name MBlox, Inc. at Andrew Bud's insistence and operated dual headquarters in Mountainview, California, and London, England. This transaction was spearheaded by Q-Advisors, a boutique investment bank founded by Michael Quinn in 2001 and located in Denver, Colorado. The CEO of mBlox, Inc. was William "Chip" Hoffman, who architected and executed the transaction with the help of Gary Cuccio (Chairman), and Jay Emmet (COO). The new company - Mblox Inc. – became the world leader in SMS technology use and carrier clearing and billing, growing from $1.75 million in 2002 to over $2 billion in pro forma revenue by April 2004 (19 months). This growth was primarily organic with geographic expansion into over 30 countries, including London, San Francisco, Atlanta, Stockholm, Paris, Munich, Madrid, Singapore, Manila, and Sydney.
In 2003, the company acquired carrier-grade message delivery capabilities through the purchase of an SMSC from Comverse. [30] After stepping down in mid-2004, William "Chip" Hoffman handed the reins to then-Chairman Gary Cuccio, former Senior Executive with Pacific Telesis, and COO of the wildly successful[ citation needed ] Omnipoint Wireless. Cuccio added the CEO role to his chairmanship.
From 2005 to 2006, the company opened offices in Singapore and Australia. [31] The year 2009 was marked by the opening of the Milan office, Italy. [32]
In December 2017, the parent company CLX Communications retired the Mblox and CardBoardFish brands. [38]
Starting in 2006, with the release of the globally successful "Crazy Frog" ring-tone, MBlox became a target for regulators. Since phone bills from some carriers attribute charges to the company doing the billing, rather than to the business that actually sold and provided the service, Mblox had been accused in Internet forums of enabling a process called cramming, [39] [40] or automatically signing mobile customers up for unsolicited services and billing them accordingly. [41] As of 2008, the company had been fined 22 times for cramming-related offences, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. [42] Since Mblox had never had any involvement, direct or indirect, in creating or promoting such services, its responsibility was to try to prevent its customers abusing the SMS-based billing services it provided them. Following the sudden spate of problems in 2008–09, in 2010 the UK regulator Phonepay Plus commended Mblox for "a significant investment in new technology, personnel and resources to aid compliance and prevent further harm occurring to consumers from services operating over its platform." [43] In the UK, Mblox had not been cited in any case since December 2011, at which time the regulator described its actions as "exemplary". [44] On March 19, 2013, Mblox sold its PSMS business to OpenMarket as it chose to focus exclusively on Enterprise to Consumer mobile messaging. This brought an end to its involvement in mobile payments [45]
Sinch was initially founded in May 2014 [46] by Andreas Bernström in Stockholm and San Francisco. Originally the technology behind Rebtel, Sinch was spun-out with $12 million in funding, focusing on the mobile first, app developer market. Sinch launched its Voice and Instant Messaging [47] products in May 2014, and quickly launched their SMS API [48] product at the end of 2014.
In 2016, CLX also acquired Sinch for a total consideration of SEK 138.9 million on a debt-free basis. [49]
In February 2019, it was announced that CLX had "launched a new corporate brand and visual identity" [50] to unify all its business units under the same name. After acquiring Sinch in 2016, they have now leveraged the brand name to encompass the entire company to "more accurately and immediately [depict] its current offerings and mission". [51]
Sinch effectively has inherited the history of CLX Communications and is considered a different brand to the one launched in 2014.
CLX completed an initial public offering (IPO) and were listed on Nasdaq Stockholm in October 2015. [52] Since February 2019, the company can be found on the Mid Cap list under the Technology sector [53] under the ticker 'SINCH'. [54] [55]
In February 2021, Sinch acquired Inteliquent, an interconnection provider for voice communications, for $1.14 billion. [56]
Competitors are 8x8, LINK Mobility, Twilio, Infobip, and BICS (TeleSign).
In May of 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States of America sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Inteliquent division of Sinch for hosting illegal robocall campaigns. [57] In the cease-and-desist letter, the FTC cited robocalls from Social Security Administration imposters, AT&T/DirecTV imposters, Utility disconnection/rebate/rate reduction scams, Auto warranty robocalls, and Credit card interest rate reduction robocalls. [58]
CEO and Founder Andreas was announced as one of The 9 Most Innovative People in VoIP in 2014. [59]
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and triggers a transmission to the recipient(s), who are all connected on a common network. It differs from email in that conversations over instant messaging happen in real-time. Most modern IM applications use push technology and also add other features such as emojis, file transfer, chatbots, voice over IP, or video chat capabilities.
Telenor ASA is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, but focused in Scandinavia and Asia. It has extensive broadband and TV distribution operations in four Nordic countries, and a 10-year-old research and business line for machine-to-machine technology. Telenor owns networks in 8 countries.
Mobile phone spam is a form of spam, directed at the text messaging or other communications services of mobile phones or smartphones. As the popularity of mobile phones surged in the early 2000s, frequent users of text messaging began to see an increase in the number of unsolicited commercial advertisements being sent to their telephones through text messaging. This can be particularly annoying for the recipient because, unlike in email, some recipients may be charged a fee for every message received, including spam. Mobile phone spam is generally less pervasive than email spam, where in 2010 around 90% of email is spam. The amount of mobile spam varies widely from region to region. In North America, mobile spam steadily increased after 2008 and accounted for half of all mobile phone traffic by 2019. In parts of Asia up to 30% of messages were spam in 2012.
TV4 AB is a Swedish media company owned by Telia Company through TV4 Media. The company owns the largest commercial television channel in Sweden, TV4.
Bandwidth is a communications platform as a service company. It sells software application programming interfaces for voice, text messaging and emergency services, using its own global IP voice network.
Openwave is a division of Enea. It provides video traffic management and 5G mobile products.
An SMS gateway or MMS gateway allows a computer to send or receive text messages in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) transmissions between local and/or international telecommunications networks. In most cases, SMS and MMS are eventually routed to a mobile phone through a wireless carrier. SMS gateways are commonly used as a method for person-to-person to device-to-person communications. Many SMS gateways support content and media conversions from email, push, voice, and other formats.
TeleMessage is an Israeli software company based in Petach Tikva, Israel. The company was founded in 1999 by Guy Levit and Gil Shapira. It provides secure enterprise messaging, mobile communications archiving and high-volume text messaging services.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling, and can transmit in-call multimedia. It is part of the broader IP Multimedia Subsystem. Google has added support for end-to-end encryption for all chats using RCS in their own app, Google Messages. End-to-end encryption is not a feature of RCS specified by GSMA.
Inteliquent is a communications enabler offering network-based voice and messaging services to wireless, cable, carriers and communication service providers. The products of Inteliquent include voice, toll-free, messaging, and emergency services.
Acision was a privately held British mobile communications network infrastructure company engaged in messaging and charging systems that enable popular services such as Short message service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile internet browsing, mobile broadband, and voicemail. In particular, Acision specialised in providing IP messaging to over-the-top media services and other enterprises.
YouMail is an Irvine, CA-based developer of a visual voicemail and Robocall blocking service for mobile phones, available in the US and the UK. Their voicemail mobile app replaces the voicemail service offered by mobile phone service providers, and offers webmail-like voicemail access and voicemail-to-text transcriptions. The company also compiles the YouMail Robocall index by monitoring automated call patterns and behaviors, and verifying that activity against numbers that its customers block, or report as spam.
VEON Ltd. is a Dutch-domiciled multinational telecommunication services company. It predominantly operates services in the regions of Asia, Africa and Europe. It is the 13th largest mobile network operator in the world by number of subscribers. The company operates in six markets including Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, VEON announced the sale of its Russian operations on 24 November 2022. VEON's brands include Kyivstar, Jazz Pakistan, Banglalink and others.
Infobip is a Croatian IT and telecommunications company, founded in 2006.
LINK Mobility Group AS is a cloud communications platform as a service (CPaaS) company headquartered in Oslo, Norway. Link Mobility allows customers to send, and receive phone calls, SMS, MMS, RCS and eMails through their API. LINK is publicly listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. In 2017, LINK Mobility had a total turnover of 1,294 million NOK, increasing to NOK 3,539 billion in 2020. With 28 offices across 18 countries including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Poland, France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and the United States. LINK is the largest CPaaS provider in Europe.
Numerex Corp. – a wholly owned subsidiary of Sierra Wireless NASDAQ:(SWIR) – is a provider of managed machine-to-machine (M2M) enterprise solutions enabling the Internet of Things (IoT).
LeoVegas AB is a Swedish mobile gaming company and provider of online casino and sports betting services such as table games, video slots, progressive jackpots, video poker and live betting to a number of international markets. LeoVegas Gaming Ltd. is a subsidiary of MGM resorts international.
Xura, Inc. , previously known as Comverse, Inc., was a technology company headquartered in Wakefield, Massachusetts, United States, in existence from 2013 to 2017, that offered a portfolio of digital services which enabled global communications across a variety of mobile devices and platforms. Xura marketed and sold to communications service providers (CSPs) and to enterprises.
Gupshup is an American messaging platform for businesses to communicate in. With primary operations in India, United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and South East Asia, it is owned and operated by Webaroo Inc.
Pingdom AB is a Swedish website monitoring software as a service company launched in Stockholm and later acquired by the Austin, Texas-based SolarWinds. The company releases annual reports on global internet use, which are frequently cited in academic publications and by media organizations as a source of Internet-related statistics.
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