As expected, Nokia announced the sale of its HERE mapping service to a consortium of automotive manufacturers, including Audi, BMW and Daimler. The value of the transaction is €2.8 billion, which is about $3.07 billion USD, and expected to close sometime in Q1 2016.
“HERE is laying the foundations for the next generation of mobility and location based services. For the automotive industry this is the basis for new assistance systems and ultimately fully autonomous driving,” says BMW.
“Extremely precise digital maps will be used in combination with real-time vehicle data in order to increase road safety and to facilitate innovative new products and services. On the basis of the shared raw data, all automobile manufacturers can offer their customers differentiated and brand-specific services.”
At the end of June 2015, HERE had 6,454 employees and HERE President Sean Fernback, said “I believe today’s announcement is a very good outcome for HERE, its customers and employees. The new ownership structure of HERE will allow us to accelerate our strategy, further scale our business and fulfill our intent to become the leading location cloud company across industries.”
Once the deal closes, Nokia will have two businesses units, specifically Nokia Networks and Nokia Technologies. Apart from entering the VR market with OZO, Nokia is also expected to come back into the smartphone space by “designing and licensing handsets.”
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