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BMW, Audi and Mercedes Close in on Deal for Here Maps, Announcement Coming July 31st

After talks that started at the end of Spring this year, a consortium made up of BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz is apparently close to buying the Nokia Here division. According to new info, the trio and the Finnish company might’ve reached an agreement and an announcement is to be made on July 31st.
BMW Navigation 1 photo
Photo: Catalin Garmacea
The deal is supposed to have a value of anything between $2.7 and $4 billion if we’re to believe the latest info coming in from insiders close to the deal. We know for sure that Nokia started the negotiations at $4 billion but that the parties involved in the discussion refused to pay this much.

In the meantime, two interested companies withdrew their offers while the traditional rivals from Germany kept on pressing for a deal to happen.

Why is this so important?

As you might’ve noticed, the Here division of Nokia is of rather extreme importance. It’s so attractive that the biggest rivals in the premium segment decided to join forces and try to acquire it but why is that?

Here is a high-definition digital mapping company that was created after Nokia bought off the maps unit of Navteq for $8.1 billion back in 2008. Along with this purchase, the Fins also took over a couple of location technology companies and in the meantime they managed to create the best such system in the world.

That was possible not only due to the continued research in the field but also due to its fleet of vehicles fitted with cameras and LIDAR as well as the collaboration with trucking companies in GPS data.

Over 70 percent of the auto market relies on info provided by Here maps and it will prove essential in the future for building autonomous cars. That’s one aspect everyone’s interested in and that’s why the three German companies are working together on this.
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