ABB has entered into an agreement to acquire the shipping business of DTN Europe and DTN Philippines (DTN Shipping), expanding the company’s offering in maritime software.
ABB says that this will establish it as one of the market leaders in ship route optimisation. The acquisition of the DTN Shipping portfolio covers vessel routing software, including analytics, reporting, and modelling applications. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is subject to various conditions and is expected to close during Q2 2024.
The acquisition comes at a time when real-time weather routing analytics play an increasingly important role in helping vessels optimise voyage efficiency and safety. Complementing ABB’s existing digital offering, the DTN Shipping business brings application programming interfaces (API) to ABB and expands the number of vessels connected to ABB networks to over 5,000. ABB and DTN Shipping will work together to ensure continuous customer service and the seamless integration of approximately 85 employees, most of whom are located in the Netherlands and Philippines, into ABB.
Current customers of DTN Shipping are expected to benefit from ABB’s experience in electric, automated and digital marine solutions, securing more opportunities to gain efficiencies, save fuel and cut emissions.
Juha Koskela, Division President, ABB Marine & Ports said: “We look forward to welcoming our new colleagues to the ABB family. With DTN Shipping’s unique weather routing solutions, combined with our existing digital portfolio, we can bring significant benefits for ship owners and operators worldwide. This is integral to our commitment to deploy digital solutions for the purpose of driving better operational decisions, resulting in increasingly sustainable performance of vessels. With this acquisition, we can now offer all levels of digitalisation, across all fleet types and sizes, creating a unique offering in vessel and voyage performance.”
Marc Chesover, DTN President and CEO added: “Innovation is by nature collaborative. This is an important moment in the advancement of digital solutions for the maritime industry. We are proud of what the Shipping team has accomplished at DTN and are confident that the industry will see great value from the expanded ABB offerings that are possible when combined with the DTN Shipping portfolio. DTN looks forward to continuing to provide core forecasting elements to ABB post completion.”
ABB Ability digital solutions for the marine industry are established in the passenger, ice-going, container and energy vessel segments. With this acquisition, ABB further strengthens the company’s focus on investing in digital solutions that support decarbonisation and enable better resource efficiency, in line with the ABB purpose to drive a more sustainable future through technology leadership. DTN is a global, data, analytics and technology company headquartered in Minneapolis and Utrecht.
Image: ABB Marine and Ports digital landscape (credit ABB/JLA)
