Acquisitions

Nokia, the world's largest phone makers, announced Monday that it plans to buy digital mapmaker Navteq Corp. for $8.1 billion. The Finland-based company said that Navteq will continue to support its existing customers, continuing to operate independently, but it will be organized as a Nokia group company. Nokia President and Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said that Nokia "will be able to bring context and geographical information to a number of our Internet services with accelerated time to market." It's not the first acquisition of the year for Nokia, they recently bought Gate5 a small company based in Berlin that makes navigational software applications for cellphones, and Enpocket, a mobile advertising company based in Boston. "This is not just about ‘the Internet goes mobile,'" said Richard A. Simonson, Nokia's chief financial officer. "We're not just trying to replicate the Google or Microsoft experience online. The consumer won't come unless we give them something that is rich." Chicago-based Navteq was formed in 1985 creating map devices, and now it creates digital maps of cities and other locations worldwide for Internet mapping services offered by Mapquest and Google. Shares for Nokia fell after the announcement with 4 percent, but they closed up to 3 cents, at $37.96 a share on the New York Stock Exchange. "This is a very high valuation for the U.S. company, so yes, this is a high price to pay," said Mats Nystrom, an analyst at SEB Enskilda Bank in Stockholm. "But navigation is a hot area and fits well with Nokia's strategy."

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071001/ap_on_hi_te/nokia_navteq;_ylt=AkDrGjbYQFKiFlNgYYXJ0XSs0NUE

by Delia Cruceru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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