Nokia maps out new business direction


3 Oct 2007

At a purchase price of €5.7bn Nokia has acquired mapping and navigational software makers Navteq, opening up a new direction in their services strategy.

Explaining why it choose Navteq, Nokia said in a statement: “The navigation area is a fast-growing business, and with location-based services expanding rapidly into mobile communications devices, the industry is poised for even further growth.”

Navteq is the world’s leading supplier of digital mapping information for mobile devices, sat-nav systems and internet-based mapping applications.

The company was founded in 1983 and pulled in revenues of US$582m in the last year alone.

Although Google has made significant inroads into the online mapping service, Navteq owns traffic.com, an interactive site that provides traffic information for consumers.

With more then 900 million people worldwide using its handsets, Nokia can use this as a platform to distribute Navteq’s mobile mapping software.

“Location-based services are one of the cornerstones of Nokia’s Internet services strategy,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of Nokia.

“By joining forces with NAVTEQ, we will be able to bring context and geographical information to a number of our internet services with accelerated time to market.”

Additionally Nokia recently overhauled its Nokia Maps service as well as purchasing Gate5, a Berkin based company that produces navigational software for mobile phones.

By Marie Boran