Volkswagen has agreed to buy a majority stake in the WirelessCar connected car service from Volvo, further showing its ambitions to make its vehicles a true internet hub.

The deal, worth around SEK 1.1 billion (£97m/$123m), will see the German automaker pick up a 75.1 per cent stake in the Swedish connected car specialist.

Volkswagen aims to use the acquisition to help to provide full connectivity within is future vehicles and develop services for customers to access via the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud (VAC). The VAC is already being worked on in partnership with Microsoft and Diconium.

“Our aim is to develop the Volkswagen into a mobility provider with a fully-connected fleet,” said Christoph Hartung, head of digital & new business / mobility services at Volkswagen. “Our customers will be able to use digital value-added services in their cars or on their mobile devices at all times. We are switching up a gear with this development and have gained WirelessCar as the third major partner. We are now really stepping on the gas and focusing on integrating the technologies.”