Vodafone said today it had agreed to buy an Italian provider of electronics services to the car industry for 145 million eurosas part of its strategy to start connecting devices such as cars and other machines.

The British company said it had agreed to buy Cobra Automotive Technologies, a provider of security, telecommunications and vehicle tracking.

Vodafone, like other mobile operators, is looking to expand into the so-called machine-to-machine industry to connect millions of devices, as a new source of revenue.

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