French technology giant the Thales Group has announced that the company has completed its acquisition of Netherlands - based digital security firm Gemalto for 4.8 billion Euros. Completed in 15 months, the acquisition creates a Group on a new scale and a global leader in digital identity and security employing 80,000 people. Incorporating the talent and technologies of Gemalto, Thales will develop secure solutions to address the major challenges faced by our societies, such as unmanned air traffic management, data and network cybersecurity, airport security or financial transaction security.

This combination creates a world-class leader with an unrivalled portfolio of digital identity and security solutions based on technologies such as biometry, data protection, and, more broadly, cybersecurity. Thales will thus provide a seamless response to customers, including critical infrastructure providers such as banks, telecom operators, government agencies, utilities and other industries as they step up to the challenges of identifying people and objects and keeping data secure.

Thales and Gemalto share a passion for the advanced technologies that serve as a common foundation and focus for their 80,000 employees. Research and development (R&D) is at the core of the new Group, with its 3,000 researchers and 28,000 engineers dedicated to R&D. Thales has been developing state-of-the-art technologies to meet the most demanding requirements of customers around the world for decades. Today the Group has become a giant laboratory inventing the world of tomorrow, with a portfolio of 20,500 patents, of which more than 400 new ones were registered in 2018.

The new Thales will cover the entire critical decision chain in an increasingly interconnected and vulnerable world, with capabilities spanning software development, data processing, real-time decision support, connectivity and end-to-end network management.
With one billion euros a year devoted to self-funded R&D, the Group will continue to innovate in its key markets, drawing in particular on its world-class digital expertise in the Internet of Things, Big Data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Following this acquisition, Gemalto will form one of Thales’s seven global divisions, to be named Digital Identity and Security (DIS). Gemalto will interact with the entire Group’s civil and defence customers and will significantly strengthen its industrial presence in 68 countries. Thales will considerably expand its operations in Latin America (2,500 employees, up from 600), triple its presence in Northern Asia (1,980, from 700), Southeast Asia (2,500, from 800) and India (1,150, from 400) and North America (6,660 employees, up from 4,600).