Siemens is paying €550m to acquire Dutch firm Sqills, a provider of reservation and ticketing software to public transport operators.  

Sqills produces cloud-based inventory management, reservation and ticketing software, and has developed S3 Passenger, a scalable platform that enables rail and bus operators to replace their legacy reservation systems with an online booking system that increases the use and availability of passenger transportation.

This technology adds digital technology to Siemens Mobility’s software portfolio and bolsters its ability to provide the products and services that help increase the overall usage and convenience of public transportation.

“The acquisition of Sqills is a perfect example of how Siemens combines the real and digital worlds to empower its customers in their transformation,” said Roland Busch, chief executive officer of Siemens. “At the same time, Sqills supports our own growth path for digital services and is a great example of applying our capital allocation criteria through targeted acquisitions. It also fits perfectly to our recently announced focus on generating recurring revenue through resilient business models such as software-as-a-service.”

Michael Peter, CEO of Siemens Mobility, added: “To significantly increase passengers on the rails and reach climate targets by 2030, we need to provide passengers with a more optimised process that allows them to seamlessly identify and utilise all offered train services. The acquisition of Sqills and its easy to implement SaaS inventory, reservation and ticketing platform gives us the ability to achieve exactly that. Furthermore, combining the Sqills booking platform and Hacon provides a comprehensive offering for operators to manage their key travel processes, including trip searching and yield management.”

Hacon is Siemens Mobility’s trip planning and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) software. The acquisition means Siemens Mobility can now provide operators with an enhanced SaaS offering to manage their core processes.

“Joining Siemens Mobility’s growing business and software portfolio for intermodal and connected travel is a tremendous opportunity that allows Sqills to advance its plans to expand beyond Europe into Asia Pacific and the Americas as well as its ongoing investment in team, product and existing long term operator partnerships,” said Bart van Munster, co-founder of Sqills. “Together with a strong and trusted international partner like Siemens Mobility, we’ll be even better equipped to drive the mobility software business and optimisation of rail and bus travel on a global scale with local representation.”

The acquisition of Sqills is the latest example of Siemens Mobility’s path to developing its software portfolio for digital intermodal and connected mobility. Together with Hacon, EOS.Uptrade, Bytemark and Padam Mobility, Sqills’ S3 Passenger will become part of an interconnected software portfolio where a wide variety of services for public transport are brought together.

With the growing liberalisation of the rail operator market, this could be critical as operators are increasingly seeking competitive mobility technology that will help them better serve passengers.

Founded in 2002 in Enschede, Netherlands, Sqills employs 160 people and forecasts revenue for 2022 of around €40m with a sharply growing scalable SaaS-business model. With 33 operators across nine countries, Sqills is becoming the provider of choice to many transport operators, such as SNCF, Irish Rail, Rail Delivery Group, SJ, Via Rail and Eurostar.

Sqills will be managed as a separate legal entity and wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens Mobility. The acquisition is expected to be EPS accretive pre-PPA in the second year after closing. Closing of the transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022.