Nokia will soon be the largest maker of telecom equipment in the world ahead of Ericsson and Huawei. It just acquired French telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent for 15.6 billion euros ($16.6 billion), or more than double the $7 billion Microsoft paid for its Windows Phone arm. The Finnish company said that the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent's famous Bell Laboratories (established by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880), would also help it develop next-gen cellular and smartphone technology. "The combined company will be in a position to accelerate development of future technologies including 5G... as well as sensors and imaging."
The combined company will run under the Nokia banner, but Bell Labs will keep the Alcatel-Lucent name. It won't necessarily be jumping into the Android business, as the company that makes Alcatel smartphones is a separate joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent and China's TCL. Nokia took pains to point out that while the merged business would be headquartered in Finland, France will remain "a vibrant center of the combined company." It added that it'll stick with Alcatel-Lucent's employment commitments in France - no doubt because the Gallic nation may have some say over the deal, scheduled to close in 2016.
Nokia said it may also sell off its Here mapping division to focus on the network business, but would only do it if the price was right. It was reportedly considering a sale to a German automaker consortium and even Uber, according to Bloomberg .
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