Nokia has green light!
EC clears Nokia's proposed acquisition of digital map provider NAVTEQ
Brussels: 2 July 2008
The European Commission has announced that it has cleared the proposed acquisition of NAVTEQ by Nokia. The press release – IP/08/1085 states:
“The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of NAVTEQ of the US by Nokia of Finland. NAVTEQ is a provider of navigable digital map databases and Nokia mainly produces mobile telephones. After an in-depth examination, launched in March 2008 (see IP/08/478), the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.”
“On the basis of the in-depth economic analysis carried out during its investigation, the Commission concluded that the merged company would be unlikely to pursue a strategy of closing off competitors. The merged firm's ability to deny competitors access to map databases is limited by the presence of the other competitor, Tele Atlas. In addition, the merged company would lack incentives to close off supplies of digital map databases to its competitors because a loss in sales of maps would not be compensated by increased sales of mobile telephones. Other mobile phone manufacturers could still compete with Nokia by working together with independent developers of navigation applications or by developing other features of their handsets. As a result, the Commission concluded that the proposed concentration would not raise any competition concerns.”
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