Linksys’ technologies, including its routers and Smart Wi-Fi portfolio and services, will continue to be managed and maintained as a separate brand and product portfolio.
Chet Pipkin, CEO of Belkin, said: “Linksys and Belkin are now one team. We are ready to do fantastic things as a team and deliver products that delight consumers and support the increasingly connected, mobile world.”
Linksys was acquired by Cisco in 2003, and its acquisition by Belkin marks Cisco’s exit from the consumer market space. While financial terms and deals were not disclosed, Bloomberg reported that it was estimated that Cisco would receive “much less than the $500 million” it paid for Linksys back in 2003.
Belkin intends to maintain the Belkin and Linksys brands in home networking and seeks to grow Linksys’ market presence by tapping into the complementary innovation and engineering strategies in the combined organization.
Linksys customers and retailers can expect new Linksys products in the market in the near future. Belkin aims to address a broader range of consumers with distinct networking solutions and will create the premier ecosystem for mobile devices and smart homes.
The buyout will grow Belkin’s reach considerably as Belkin will account for approximately 30 percent of the U.S. retail home and small business networking market.
Support for Linksys products will continue to be available through the existing Linksys support channels. All valid warranties will be honored for current and future Linksys products.
Meanwhile, the global router market declined 0.2 percent in Q4 2012.
