Nokia has sold its HERE mapping business for $3.2 billion

When Nokia announced that its HERE mapping business was up for sale, everyone and their mother jumped in to talk about an acquisition, but it looks like the company has settled on a final buyer. Confirming rumors and speculation that have been popping up for the last few weeks, a consortium of German automakers consisting of Audi, BMW, and Daimler has agreed to acquire the business for $3.2 billion. 

A consortium of German premium carmakers has agreed a deal to buy Nokia’s mapping business HERE, two people familiar with the matter said on Sunday, in a push to extend the reach of automakers into digital services for connected cars. The consortium of Daimler BMW and Volkswagen’s premium division Audi, has agreed to pay close to 2.9 billion euros ($3.2 billion), one of the people said. The sources said the deal was likely to be announced on Monday. Daimler declined to comment while BMW, Audi and Nokia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Intelligent mapping systems are the basis on which self-driving cars linked to wireless networks can perform intelligent functions such as recalculating a route if data about a traffic jam or an accident is transmitted to the car. In the future, such mapping systems will have a role to play in collision detection and other features of self-driving cars. Autonomous and connected car services could become a $50 billion market, analysts at Exane BNP Paribas have estimated.