Abu Dhabi: Ericsson will establish a media hub in Abu Dhabi to serve clients across the Middle East region in partnership with twofour54, the commercial arm of the Media Zone Authority, a top executive of the company said on Monday.
The hub will provide playout services and act as the local base to eventually leverage Ericsson’s leading portfolio of services in content management, over-the-top (OTT), content discovery, metadata, creative and access services.
“Abu Dhabi is a great location to provide those services from. We are excited to be present here. We see a lot of potential in the UAE and adjacent countries,” Thorsten Sauer, head of broadcast and media services at Ericsson told Gulf News.
He said Middle East offers a number of opportunities for the company. “The population is young and predominantly affluent. They are excited by new means of communication, very high smart phone penetration and open to new platforms.”
The investment is significant but Sauer refused to divulge details. “We are starting with a small group of eight highly qualified technical people and will expand later on. We see a great demand for our services with more channels coming on air.”
By 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices, and of these, more than 15 billion are expected to be video enabled, according to Ericsson’s vision of the networked society.
“It’s the business we have grown over the last couple of years to a significant size. We are responsible for 500 channels everyday. We are a global company and our ambition is global. We try to be close to our customers.”
Rafiah Ibrahim, President Ericsson Region Middle East and East Africa, said the networked society is happening across the Middle East region transforming industries. “Today we see the TV industry in the region witnessing this transformation with strong local and international broadcaster base.”
“Our role is to help those broadcasters seize the opportunities of this transformation. The partnership with twofour54 is an important milestone in our ambition to provide industry-leading media services in this dynamic region.”
Ericsson has a significant heritage in the global TV and media market and pioneered the video compression technologies that are driving the worldwide digitalisation of TV and enabling new viewing experiences such as HDTV, TV Anywhere and UHDTV.
The company’s strategy in TV and media is to help content owners, broadcasters and TV service providers evolve to meet consumer demand for video experiences on any device.
