T-Venture, the venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom, has made a $7.5 million investment round in free messaging provider Pinger.
Pinger isn't the first over the top application or service Deutsche Telekom has invested in. In 2007 Deutsche Telekom lead a round of investment in Jajah, a significant provider of over the top voice services. Telefonica now owns Jajah.
Those investments in over the top messaging and voice are not as odd as one might think. It certainly is true that such over the top apps increasingly are competing with, and displacing, traditional mobile service provider voice and messaging services.
On the other hand, even though over the top services cannibalize legacy revenue, such apps also allow firms such as Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom to make revenue and get customers outside their traditional service territories.
Much as firms acquire other firms in new areas to gain the additional customer base and revenue, so over the top apps, even when cannibalizing some amount of in-territory revenue, also create the foundation for new revenues outside a traditional service territory.
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