Uber Bids £1.94bn For Nokia HERE Maps – Report

Uber has reportedly submitted a $3 billion (£1.94bn) bid for Nokia’s HERE Maps division but could be outflanked by a rival bid from a number of car manufacturers comprising BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz with the support of Chinese web firm Baidu.

Nokia is apparently keen to sell HERE to focus on its networking division, which is set to be strengthened by the £11.2 billion takeover of Alcatel Lucent and accounts for 90 percent of the Finnish company’s revenue.

Uber HERE maps

According to The New York Times, Uber wants to reduce its dependency on Google Maps as it seeks to expand its operations beyond private taxi hire to logistics, delivering items within cities as quickly as possible.

Google Maps is the market leader among consumers, but HERE Maps has an 80 percent share in the automobile market. Facebook and Microsoft have also been linked with a bid for HERE, with a private equity firm also reportedly interested.

Nokia had thought the sale of HERE would attract a price of €2bn (£1.44bn), significantly less than the $8.1bn (£5.54bn) forked out by Nokia to acquire Navteq in 2008. However the prospect of a bidding war will soften the blow.

Both Nokia and Uber declined TechWeekEurope’s request to comment on the report.

The HERE maps, advanced technology and networking arms were the three businesses Nokia was left with following Microsoft’s £4.6 billion acquisition of the Espoo-based firm’s devices and services unit last year, but it appears as though the company is ready to put all its eggs in one network basket.

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