Thales - the French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security markets - and Gemalto, the global leader in digital security, have entered into a merger agreement to create a global market leader in the fast-growing digital security market, supporting the most demanding clients in their digital transformation. Thales will combine its digital assets with Gemalto, within a new Global Business Unit.

 

Over the past three years, Thales has significantly increased its focus on digital technologies, investing over Euro 1 billion in connectivity, cybersecurity, data analytics and artificial intelligence, in particular with the acquisition of Sysgo, Vormetric and Guavus. The integration of Gemalto strongly accelerates this strategy, reinforcing Thales's digital offering, across its five vertical markets (aeronautics, space, ground transportation, defence and security). Altogether, this new business unit will represent 20% of pro forma Group revenues and rank among the top three players worldwide, with Euro 3.5 billion revenues in the fast growing digital security market.

 

Combined with Gemalto's unique leading digital security portfolio, Thales will be ideally positioned to offer an end-to-end solution, to secure the full critical digital decision chains, from data creation in sensors to real-time decision making. This unrivalled and innovative technology portfolio will put Thales in a highly differentiated position to provide enterprises and governments with a seamless response to the data security challenges that lie at the heart of their digital transformation.

 

By acquiring a global leader in trusted identities and data security, Thales adds over Euro 3 billion of revenue to its digital business sales and acquires a set of technologies and competencies that have applications in all of Thales's five vertical markets.