Nokia’s HERE Maps Sold to BMW, Audi and Daimler; Not Apple or Uber

The Wall Street Journal reports Nokia has sold their HERE mapping service to Audi, BMW and Daimler, as the latter group has agreed in principle to pay $2.71 billion US for the service:

German auto makers Audi AG, BMW AG, and Daimler AG have agreed in principle to purchase Nokia Oy’s digital mapping service Nokia Here for slightly more than €2.5 billion ($2.71 billion), according to a person familiar with the matter.

The trio will purchase all of Nokia HERE, invite other automakers to invest stakes into the service and open up the platform:

“The goal has always been to run the service as an open platform for everyone,” the person said. “The final signing could take place in the next few days.”

Uber dropped out of the bidding nearly a month ago, along with other private equity investors. Back in April, Bloomberg reported Apple was one of the prospective parties interested in acquiring the mapping division.

According to Nokia, nearly 80% of the auto industry is a customer of their HERE maps service. Nokia HERE is based on the digital mapping from Navteq, which the former acquired for $8.1 billion US in 2007.

By integrating Nokia’s HERE maps, and eventually forming a consortium of automakers using the service, it looks to be an attempt to stamp out rival services from Apple and Google, as these tech giants are aggressively pursuing in-car services with CarPlay and Android Auto.

Nokia launched their HERE maps for iOS back in March—download it here.

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