Nokias Here Mapping Unit Sold to German Car Makers

audi hereAfter months of speculation, Nokia has finally sold its Here mapping business to a consortium of German car manufacturers made up of Daimler, BMW and Audi for around 2.5bn (£1.75bn).

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016, and will also see the consortium taking on around 300m of liabilities that Here currently holds. The three automakers will hold equal stakes in the mapping business, and none of them are seeking to acquire a majority interest at present.

The Finnish tech manufacturer has been seeking to sell the mapping unit since April in order to focus on its equipment making business. The company has considerable work ahead integrating its recent purchase of Alcatel-Lucent, which it bought in April for 15.6bn, but once the two firms are united, it will have created the worlds second largest network equipment maker.

The Here business provides mapping and location services for almost 200 countries and in over 50 languages, and its intelligent mapping systems are likely of interest to the car manufacturers for their application in self-driving cars.

The automaker consortium has been one of the names in consideration for buying Here since the rumour of a sale was first announced, with other potential buyers being a virtual Whos Who of the digital world, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Baidu, Alibaba and Uber.

“Here will play a key role in the digital revolution of mobility, combining high definition maps and data from vehicles to make travel safer and easier for everyone,” said Harald Krüger, chairman of the board of management at BMW.

“Here will be able to offer users a continuously improving product, bringing highly automated driving and location based services a step further,” said Ulrich Hackenberg, member of the board of management of Audi for technical development. “As the volume of anonymised data from the vehicles increases, services will become more convenient, more connected and further tailored to the users individual requirements.”

Here will continue to offer its existing services and products, including honouring its recent deal with Facebook to integrate its maps into the social networks mobile products including Messenger and Instagram.