Innomedia changing focus toward tier 1 providers
Having survived the downturn and a decidedly downbeat Asian telecom market, Singapore based Innomedia has changed a few gears for good. It is focusing on tier 1 providers without a compromise. In that category of service providers, it has so far been successful with Cablevision, Reliance, and Hutchison-CKC. There are 3 more, tier 1, cable MSOs in the pipeline, with at least one of them being US based.
Innomedia raised a whopping $100 million in funding from lead banks including Goldman Sachs just before the downturn. Back then, VoIP in Asia was hot. Now the region struggles to sustain small VoIP providers that are focused mostly on international calls market.
During the downturn Innomedia focused on competitive providers which proved risky. Tier 2 providers like Sunrocket, an Innomedia customer, have not been able to give Innomedia a stable customer base. Sunrocket declared bankruptcy a few months back. This has led the company to change focus toward tier 1 service providers.
Although ATAs and MTAs are the main source of Innomedia business, the company has also been testing waters with video phones that it makes. Its video phone business flourished some years back and for a brief period did better than company’s VoIP products, but the video proportion has declined and VoIP part of the business is up again.
Innomedia also operates a service arm named Innosphere. Innosphere started as offering retail VoIP but has since changed the business model to termination provision. Customers include VoIP and TDM service providers.
With a low burn rate and focus on tier 1s, Innomedia hopes to gain a steady and predictable revenue stream in order to tap the public markets. The vendor employs over 150, out of which 30 are based in the US.
