In the past two years, there have been a lot of mergers and buyouts in gaming. Now Jabra's GNparent company has agreed to acquire gaming peripheral maker SteelSeries.
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The deal was announced today in a joint press release. It is estimated to be worth around $1.24billion. GN hopes to include another Danish company, SteelSeries, under its umbrella. Although SteelSeries and Jabra, a GN subsidiary, may not appear to have a lot of overlap, there is potential for SteelSeries to share research and develop audio products. These range from low-cost Bluetooth headphones to premium gaming headsets.
Ehtisham Rabani, SteelSeries CEO, stated that the company is on a mission "to continually push the boundaries in esports, gaming, with world-class software and products, and now with the support of GN, we will be able turbocharge these efforts."
Rabbani stated that SteelSeries will still operate independently, even though GN will become its new parent company.
Although not as well-known as its other subsidiaries, GN is actually around for 150 years. It is credited with being the first company to sell mobile Bluetooth headsets.
SteelSeries has also made a few acquisitions over the past year, including the deals to buy KontrolFreek, and Nahimic, which are gaming audio specialists. Their products have been featured on a variety of gaming notebooks throughout history.
The bigger picture is that GN has agreed to buy SteelSeries. This follows the pattern of gaming acquisitions in which HP bought HyperX, Origin PC by Corsair and Elgato, Scuf and Origin PC by Corsair, Logitech acquiring Blue and many other purchases over the past two years.
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Due to the covid-19 pandemic, gaming revenue has risen by a lot over the last 18 months. More people are forced to stay inside and rely more on gaming to entertain them. The consolidation of accessory manufacturers makes sense. SteelSeries' $1.24 billion purchase is one of our largest, but so many gaming brands continue to merge it won't be the last.
