Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency

Itron Corporation was established 40 years ago by a few engineers in order to improve the efficiency of taking electricity, gas and water meter readings. As a result of decades of development and innovation, the previously manual metering has become more and more automated. Since the equipment of electricity, gas and water meters with data collection and transmission modules in the 1990s, meter readings have been automatic (AMR), that is, the data of the meters are queried and recorded by wireless means. In this technology, Itron is the absolute market leader in the North American market. In addition, it is present with its products in 130 countries of the world, which are designed, manufactured and sold by a staff of more than 8,500.

As a subsidiary of Itron, Gödöllő-based Ganz Mérőgyár Ltd. is considered a significant manufacturer and distributor even at the European level. In addition, Itron is paying increasing attention to innovation all over the world; therefore, it is establishing a European-level knowledge centre in Budapest. Its staff will work primarily on the development of Software as a Service (SaaS), that is, software products and solutions provided as services at the centre to be established with an investment of HUF 6 billion, based on the knowledge base available in Hungary. As part of the R&D activities, the company also aims to become familiar with new and more efficient energy and resource management solutions, with which it can contribute to the acceleration of the development of smart cities in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT). With the implementation of these two R&D subprojects, Itron's fourth R&D centre is established in Budapest, which will, according to plans, create jobs for 100 specialists, the majority of whom hold a higher education degree.