MWC 2018: Nokia and Japan's Marubeni partner to deliver IoT services

Nokia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Marubeni Corporation to develop, test and deliver the next generation of Internet of Things (IoT) services to its enterprise customers. The solution will be based on Nokia's worldwide IoT network grid (WING).

Nokia WING will allow Marubeni Corporation, a Japanese multinational company with businesses in several sectors, including mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) operations through its subsidiary Marubeni Wireless Communication, to rapidly and efficiently provide complete global IoT services to its enterprise customers across its five business groups, including food and consumer products, chemical and forest products, energy and metals, utilities and transportation and industrial machinery. Such services could include fleet management, remote monitoring of industrial machinery, asset management and international logistics.

The Nokia WING globally distributed Core network and related managed services enable Marubeni Corporation to become a truly global IoT service provider, providing low latency services to their multinational enterprise customers.

Marubeni Corporation's extensive experience in the MVNO/MVNE business in Japan will enable Nokia to better tailor the IoT offering to Japanese requirements.

Nokia WING is a 'one-stop-shop' IoT managed service that includes a pre-integrated global IoT core network, connectivity management, as well as dedicated IoT operations, billing, security and data analytics, along with an application ecosystem.

Koji Kabumoto, Executive Officer of ICT, Logistics & Healthcare Division at Marubeni Corporation, said: "We are looking forward to this mutually complementary relationship with Nokia, to enter a new era of the IoT market in Japan and globally. Nokia WING is a unique service and we are excited about the prospect of helping our customers easily deploy IoT services to drive new growth opportunities."

Ankur Bhan, head of WING at Nokia, said: "We are pleased to be working with Marubeni Corporation, a leader in the MVNO market in Japan and the industrial IoT market globally. Part of Marubeni Corporation's company credo since its foundation is innovation. With this agreement, both companies will deliver truly innovative global solutions to enterprise companies and customers. We will be defragmenting global IoT deployments by leveraging Nokia's WING distributed global IoT network."

Nokia WING was recognized as the winner in 'IoT leadership' at the TechXLR8 Awards, and snapped up an honourable mention in the 'IoT initiative of the year' category at the Global Telecoms Awards in 2017.