In August, Nokia sold off its mapping business, HERE to a consortium of German carmakers as had been widely expected. The consortium of leading automotive companies, comprising AUDI AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG agreed with the Finnish company to folk €2.8 billion. HERE Maps has a presence in at least 200 countries and is available in 50 languages.
The carmakers see HERE maps as a crucial tool to integrate in their car systems for navigation. With self-driving cars being looked at as the future of mobility, HERE’s intelligence will come in handy for the giant carmakers moving forward. Both sides committed to HERE’s continued availability to everyone it was offering services to prior to the acquisition by the German trio. There were no details on the fate of HERE’s 6000+ strong workforce.
The deal was expected to close in the first quarter of 2016 but Nokia has announced the deal will close tomorrow December 4th. The close of the deal now leaves Nokia Corporation with just two main arms, Nokia Networks and Nokia Technologies. The former is the subject of a merger with Alcatel-Lucent that is expected to be completed soon while the latter is Nokia’s vehicle for the connected future. It is the arm that has pioneered innovative products like Nokia’s latest virtual reality product, OZO and is expected to spearhead the Nokia brand’s return to electronic store shelves by designing mobile devices like the current N1 tablet and smartphones from late 2016 as well as developing applications like the Z launcher available for Android devices.
