SIM card and digital security group Gemalto is to buy machine-to-machine (M2M) vendor Cinterion for EUR163 million in cash. The German M2M firm employs 335 staff and posted 2009 revenues of EUR145 million, EBIT of EUR4 million and claimed a 20 percent share of the M2M module market. The deal is expected to close within the next six weeks. Cinterion was a winner of the GSMA Embedded Mobile Competition at this year’s Mobile World Congress.

The Cinterion deal gives Gemalto a big presence in the emerging M2M market, a sector it has been attempting to enter for some time. In 2008 it failed in its attempt to acquire Wavecom, which was later acquired by Sierra Wireless. Gemalto has made a number of other acquisitions recently, buying Finnish mobile authentication and signature technologies vendor Valimo in February and NXP’s mobile services business in March 2009.