Telefónica strikes deal with China Unicom in the field of IoT

Telefónica is to partner up with China Unicom, the state-owned Chinese telco, to accelerate the roll-out of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

The Spanish tech leader believes the agreement will strengthen its position in IoT in Europe, a key market globally, as well as Latin America. 

"We are leveraging IoT technologies to accompany our customers on their digital transformation journey, where IoT has a very important role to play," said Vicente Muñoz, Telefónica's Chief IoT Officer.

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"Simplifying massive IoT deployments is key and therefore we are strengthening our ecosystem of partners. Our partnership with China Unicom will strengthen Telefónica’s capability to meet our global customer needs."

Clients of the pair will benefit from a single global IoT SIM card. By using a unified IoT connectivity management platform, they will be able to control connections globally and to localise IoT SIMs once they reach a geography (subscription swap), complying with GSMA standards.

In December, Telefónica's Chief Executive Officer José Álvarez-Pallete said the company must press ahead quickly with its digital transformation programme to prepare for the 'new revolution'.

"We have to promote our plan to continue leading the digital transformation," he said. "The technological world is moving increasingly faster and digital platforms will generate a growth in traffic and services that years ago were unthinkable, especially because due to the impact of AI applied to those platforms."