Popular ride-sharing app Uber is joining forces with China's Baidu to acquire Nokia's powerful maps unit. (Photo : REUTERS)
Uber is reportedly bidding $3 billion for Nokia's Here mapping service while the Chinese search engine Baidu is set to help German car makers BMW, Audi and Daimler's Mercedes-Benz buy the mapping unit.
Famous for letting users book a taxi through smartphone application, Uber is looking forward to becoming a logistics company that delivers people and things within cities as fast as possible heavily relying on Google's Maps, the main competitor to Nokia's Here, in the process.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Uber develops, markets and operates the Uber app that lets consumers submit a trip request routed to crowd-sourced taxi drivers.
To change that dependency on Google's Maps, Uber has submitted a bid for Nokia's Here for as much as $3 billion after the Finnish telecom giant announced in April that it was considering selling the business, sources told New York Times.
The publication also has learned that luxury automobile rivals BMW, Audi and Daimler's Mercedes-Benz are teaming up with Baidu to buy Nokia's Here while an undisclosed private equity firm has also submitted another bid.
BMW, Audi and Daimler's Mercedes-Benz are preparing to formally launch a $2.3 billion bid for Nokia's Here mapping service within the next two weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
It is expected that Nokia will announce the sale of Here mapping unit before June. The company that will acquire Nokia's Here mapping unit to prevent a technology giant from gaining control of a crucial part of the technology that is required to run self-driving cars and in-car digital services.
Such technology giants are Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Apple Inc.
