Mitsubishi and NTT acquire 30% stake in HERE
HERE, Nokia’s former cartography business, received new investors from Japan. Nokia sold HERE to Daimler, Audi and BMW in 2015, two years after selling the iconic Devices and Services business to Microsoft. Sales of HERE was part of Nokia’s strategy of shifting focus to their core network business that required significant investment because of the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition and HERE was never a money making business.
After the German car makers acquired HERE, the vision for the new company was to be available to everyone interested in having a maps provider that wasn’t Google. HERE is basically an alternative to car makers and companies that don’t want to deal with Google and be completely reliable on Google will, because they can always invest in HERE and make HERE a safer bet.
Japanese companies Mitsubishi and NTT announced that they will jointly invest in a 30% stake in HERE. The investment will be made by their jointly owned holding COCO Tech Holding B.V. registered in the Netherlands. Mitsubishi and NTT will join other HERE shareholders like Audi, Bosch, BMW Group, Continental, Intel Capital, Mercedes-Benz and Pioneer.
