Nokia Oyj has been reported to sell off its money losing map business, trying hard to drum up interests from Apple, Alibaba and Amazon.
According to media reports, in addition to these, a group of German carmakers, Facebook and many private equity firms are looking ahead to Nokia’s map operations, HERE which does reflect the ubiquity and utility of services based upon location. Nokia is also looking forward to seek more than US$ 3.2 billion (3 billion euros) from unit-sale. Baidu, Sirius XM Holdings and Harman International Industries also were approached about their interest.
“I want to be very clear: if we are to sell this business, we are not a forced seller,” Nokia chief executive Rajeev Suri told a news conference last Friday.
In contrary to all this, Nokia’s mapping assets have lost a lot of value as it bought the company US$ 8.1 billion in year 2008 which as per Nokia’s financial reports was in equality with 2 billion euros last year.
As for the company, it seeks to sell the mapping unit to focus on mobile network equipment and services to stand against its rivals like Huawei. Nokia last week announced acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent for 15.6 billion euros in creating world’s largest equipment supplier that powers mobile-phone networks.
In order to improve their navigational software, many of world’s largest technology companies may be interested in Nokia’s mapping technology. In year 2012, Apple struggled when it debuted mapping software for its operating system, which gave users poor directions and mislabeled landmarks.Thi eventually led Apple to allow Google mapping apps on iPhones and iPads.
Also, the world’s largest satellite-radio provider, Sirius is focusing on widening its offerings to connect automobiles to the Internet. Alibaba, the largest Chinese e-commerce company, and Baidu, China’s largest search engine, are also interested in expanding their portfolios to offer more products and services to users.
