Aepona to create jobs with multimillion-dollar deal


11 Mar 2011

Belfast-based Aepona has secured a multimillion-dollar contract with a major American corporation to provide mobile computing via the internet.

In 2010, revenues at Aepona increased from US$21m to $35m. As part of its development, the company is planning to expand its global workforce by 15pc in the next six months. The expansion will include a number of new jobs at the company’s Belfast operations.

Aepona’s new three-year US contract with Virginia-based Neustar Inc is significant because it signals the company’s entrance into mobile cloud computing. This newly emerging market aims to address the rapidly growing opportunity for new mobile and web-based applications that revolutionise the way smartphone users work, shop, socialise and consume content.

This is a an important opportunity for Aepona as its software is used by 25 major telecoms companies to process more than 1.2bn global transactions per month, creating more than $1bn in annual revenues for the firm’s customers and partners.

“We anticipate that the new markets opening up will drive further significant growth for Aepona over the next few years. To support this, we are planning to increase our workforce by around 15 per cent in the near term. The expansion will involve a number of new highly specialised leading edge technical positions in Belfast. Further recruitment is likely in the medium term, both in Belfast and at our other overseas locations,” said Aepona’s chief financial officer Michael Black.

Aepona delivers mobile intelligence to cloud computing, with a software platform providing customers with a very effective way of developing unique mobile applications that employ the key assets within a mobile network.

The company employs around 260 people worldwide of whom 75 are based in Belfast. The remainder work mostly in Sri Lanka and in North America.

Aepona is holding a recruitment night for potential employees at the Holiday Inn, University St, Belfast, on Tuesday, 15 March, from 6.30-8.30pm.

The Times named Aepona one of the ‘25 hottest companies’ at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.