Docomo to Make $288 Million Tender Offer for Italian Mobile Content Company Buongiorno

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) issued a brief announcement today that it has launched a tender to acquire Italy-based mobile internet content company Buongiorno S.p.A (BIT:BNG). At two euros per share, Docomo would be paying up to 224 million euros (or about $288 million). Docomo says that the tender will be via its German subsidiary, Docomo Deutschland GmbH [1].

I confess that I’d not heard of Buongiorno before this [2], and so a little research was in order to figure out why Docomo might want to bring the company under its increasingly large umbrella. Its website (buongiorno.com) says that it “specializes in design and delivery of next generation mobile content,” across a full range of devices, OSs, and platforms. Although its capabilities in HTML5 mobile apps and carrier-based billing looked like a few good reasons to start. We got in touch with a Docomo to find out if those points were a major factor. A representative pointed out that this was not the case:

No, the largest factors are their global coverage in delivering services and their business performance and conditions. […] Their business has been stable since 1999, managing to be out of the red for six continuous years, and they are classed number one in Europe and other markets as well. As we plan to grow [our] platform business […] Buongiorno suits best for our strategy.

Docomo also noted that Buongiorno delivers services to a whopping two billion customers in 57 countries and over 130 billion connections with global operators.

Our readers may recall that back in August of 2011 Docomo acquired a 25 percent stake in Vietnamese mobile content company VMG to the tune of over $18 million. And then in September it further invested 28.4 million euros in net mobile Ag, which it bought in 2009.