Elisabeth Sommarvinge Discusses Speed Services’ Megatec Buy
Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
When we heard recently that Gunnar Dahl, chairman of Speed Services, Tyresö, Sweden, was coming to The DailyDOOH Media Summit on May 17, we were curious as to his new interest in Digital Out-of-Home.
Elisabeth Sommarvinge
We knew of Speed Services as a successful company in Scandinavia offering photo booths, luggage lockers, and kiosks. Dahl told us that Speed Services had recently bought Megatec Information Technology, based in Handen, Sweden. Megatec offers design , manufacture, installation, service and support of both kiosks and digital screens.
“My interest in DOOH is to get a better feeling for the digital signage world as to trends, technique, players, etc.,” Dahl said.
However, he suggested that we talk to Elisabeth Sommarvinge, Speed Services managing director, who is knowledgeable with DOOH, having worked in that field in her previous job and who is now dealing with Megatec.
“We bought Megatec in March,” said Sommarvinge. “We saw a big potential with both its kiosks and its digital signage. The latter particularly interested me because I had previously worked in that sector.
“Megatec develops screens especially for difficult locations such as in subway stations and outdoors. It’s a small company with about 10 employees compared to our approximate 65, and it’s only in Sweden at the moment, but we will develop it. We have subsidiary companies in Finland, Norway and Latvia, and they will eventually also be able to offer DOOH. We’ll perhaps also expand it to Denmark, since we do offer some of our products there already.”
Sommarvinge said that both the Speed Services and Megatec names will kept for now because, although Megatec is a small company, it has been in existence for about 20 years and has a strong benchmark in Sweden. For the time being, the two companies’ websites will also be retained, although a single new one may be developed in the next year. And the executives at Megatec will remain in place for two years.
The origin of Speed Services is the Swedish company ‘Snabbfoto AB’ which started operations in 1958. Its main business was built around photo booths which are now found in the the majority of all train stations, shopping centres and international airports in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Latvia. Its photo booths take pictures which are approved for ID-cards and driver’s license renewals. The pictures can also be used for visas and different types of entry cards.
We asked Sommarvinge if Speed Services may now consider putting digital signage on the sides of its Photo booths.
“Maybe,” she said. “It depends on the regulations in the malls and railway stations.”
We also asked if both companies would continue selling their kiosks.
“I think so,” she said. “They are different and complement each other. Megatec’s are more custom built.”
And we asked if Megatec would continue to use Scala software.
“Why not,“ she said. “In fact, we use two companies: Scala for our computers (ie. used with Speed Services’ kiosks) and Smartsign, a Swedish company.”
Speed International, the holding company of Speed Services, is privately owned by four individuals, including Gunnar Dahl.
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