After buying it for $8.1 billion

Jul 10, 2008 17:37 GMT  ·  By

Announced in October last year, Nokia's acquisition of NAVTEQ was finally completed today, after all the necessary procedures and requirements have been met. Based in Chicago, USA, NAVTEQ is an important provider of electronic maps and GIS data (Geographic Information Systems). The whole deal cost Nokia no less than $8.1 billion.

[admark=1]Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, President and CEO of Nokia, stated in a press release issued today: "Nokia and NAVTEQ together make a powerful combination, and customers will benefit as the transaction enables NAVTEQ to accelerate its expansion into new regions and introduce innovative new content. This is an industry poised for further growth and NAVTEQ will play a major role in the field. The addition of NAVTEQ comes at the right time for Nokia's business, allowing us to create the leading location platform just as context-aware and location-based Internet services expand rapidly into mobile communications devices."

"Nokia has a deep understanding of the requirements for the industry," added Judson Green, President and CEO of NAVTEQ. "As part of Nokia, NAVTEQ will further invest in its map and content capabilities and make our products and services easier for all our customers to use and access."

With NAVTEQ's resources, Nokia will improve its Web and navigation services, and especially Nokia Maps. "NAVTEQ's map data already play an important role in Nokia Maps service, which brings downloadable maps, voice-guided navigation and other context-aware web services to people's pockets. Now that the acquisition has been completed, this role will become even more important as context-aware Internet services grow," stated Niklas Savander, Executive Vice President for Services & Software at Nokia.

The Nokia takeover will allow NAVTEQ to further develop its technologies and will not have any negative effects on the current employees of the US-based company (about 3,000).

For 2007, NAVTEQ reported a revenue of more than $850 million and a net income of more than $170 million, which clearly shows that it's a profitable company with a great future.