Nokia Reportedly Nears Deal To Sell Its Maps Business To German Carmakers

The Carmakers may pay Nokia about 2.5 billion euros or $2.7 billion for the unit HERE.

Spokesmen for Nokia, Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen’s Audi declined to comment.

The three German auto makers have been rigorously competing to be the top leader in the global market, The Journal stated.

Nokia has reportedly been exclusively negotiating with the trio of companies, with maps being seen as a core technology in the development of autonomous cars, which a number of automakers have been working on over the past few years.

Shares of Nokia are down by 0.66% to $6.74 in mid-day trading on Tuesday. Its main rivals include Google and smaller Dutch map maker TomTom. Yet because the auto companies are also major HERE customers, they likely have leverage in the negotiations.

AP BMW is among carmakers keen to buy HERE. HERE provides mapping data to about 80 percent of cars with in-dash navigation systems in North America and Europe, as Bloomberg notes.

The German car makers, a consortium including ride-hailing service Uber and Chinese search engine Baidu, and a third group led by Chinese social network and online media company Tencent reportedly made initial offers for HERE, but every party except the automakers dropped out.

The sale would complete Nokias transformation into a provider of wireless-network equipment, after its exit from mobile phones in 2014.

Nokia is shedding the maps business as part of efforts to focus on integrating its 15.6 billion euro purchase of Alcatel Lucent. The company built its maps unit by buying Navteq Corp. for $8.1 billion in 2008, and also acquired other location-technology companies. While map apps that people use to navigate city streets are generally sufficient for that objective, self-driving cars require significantly more data about the world around them.

-With assistance from Elco van Groningen in Amsterdam.