Uber shows interest in Nokia’s sale of Here mapping services

The company has offered to throw in a hefty sum of $3 billion in a bid to own Here

As we all know, Nokia has been planning to sell off its Here unit. The sale is part of a restructuring plan for the company and the decision was made after it announced that it would spend $16.6 billion on telecoms equipment company Alcatel-Lucent.

It still remains to be seen who is going to get the upper hand in the bid to win Nokia’s Here maps business. Potential buyers range from big German auto manufacturers to social media giants such as Facebook and according to The New York Times, Uber has also joined the club and is bidding $3 billion on the Here service. Though it seems like quite an amount to pay for, it still isn’t close enough to the $8.1 billion it paid for Navteq, the original company name of Here.

Uber’s interest in Here has sparked a lot of attention. The company is the perfect suitor for Here because mapping services are eventually going to form a major component of Uber’s services. It is currently in talks with other companies too but purchasing a service brings far greater advantages than outsourcing it. Uber understands this pretty well and it has already taken control of the mapping company deCarta.

Offering a hefty sum for Here is definitely going to put Uber at an advantage but that doesn’t change the fact that many other major buyers are in the line too. So Uber is placed against some of the big giants including Apple, Amazon, Audi AG, BMW AG, Baidu, Facebook, Harman, Mercedes-Benz, and Sirius XM. Facebook is showing equal interest in Here and has started making use of its services on its mobile site.