NTT Docomo and Vodafone Group expanded their partnership to include the delivery of M2M services for enterprise customers.

The Japanese and UK-based operator groups have been collaborating for several years as part of Vodafone’s ‘Partner Market’ agreements initiative, but the expansion of the partnership will enable them to exploit the opportunities presented by M2M and the Internet of Things.

Kaoru Kato, president and CEO of NTT Docomo, welcomed the expansion of the partnership and said: “M2M is an important part of our overall strategy and its significance is growing by the day.”

Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said the new agreement “will help both organisations develop their enterprise business, as we enable our customers to apply M2M throughout the world in new and innovative ways”.

NTT Docomo is a member of the M2M World Alliance, which was formed in July 2012 and counts eight operators covering more than 60 countries as members. The other members are Etisalat, KPN, Rogers, SingTel, Telefonica, Telstra and VimpelCom.

In December 2013, the alliance launched a global M2M platform for corporate customers designed to “simplify and promote” the adoption of M2M communications worldwide.

A separate group of 36 Asian operators formed the competing Bridge Alliance, which focuses on the development of enterprise and M2M services along with roaming. Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is the most recent addition to this group.

With its global coverage Vodafone Group has not yet felt the need to join an alliance for M2M technology.

It has its own M2M platform to enable business customers to centrally manage M2M deployments in different regions and plans to supply an embedded SIM for new Volkswagen and Audi models in Europe from 2015.

It announced this week that it intends to buy Cobra Automotive Technologies, an Italy-based company that provides telematics, usage-based insurance and vehicle tracking technology to vehicle manufacturers, dealerships and after-market customers.