Nokia seems to giving its best shot at survival these days. Right when the world thought that Nokia is slowly but surely sliding into oblivion, the company came up with the Lumia series, which has at least managed to stall the slide for the time being. Adding a feather to their cap, Nokia has now sealed a deal with the Japanese automaker Toyota to become their official mapping supplier for Europe.
Nokia beat rival Google to land the deal and this happens to be the second such deal following the Ford mapping deal last year. The company will now be handling navigation and infotainment systems for Toyota cars (starting 2014) in Europe, parts of the Middle East and Russia. Currently, Toyota navigation systems run on Google Local search, which is being replaced post this deal. The Nokia mapping integrated application already exists in Mercedes-Benz and Alpine car systems.
Nokia Here grabbed the spotlight recently when its iOS version released before Google’s, at a time when Apple’s own Maps application had failed. Currently, Here has around 27 million users and runs on Nokia phones (Windows Phone and Symbian) and iOS. Full functionality of the application is available in more than 180 navigable countries and in a variety of languages.
The web version supports almost all the major web browsers with options including map, satellite, terrain, traffic and 3D views. Nokia’s acquisition of the Chicago-based navigable maps provider Navteq and California-based Earthmine has helped them improve the quality of their maps tremendously, which has paid rich dividends for the company in the last few years.
Nokia is usually secretive about its financial strategies, but its strategy regarding its automotive mapping system is quite straightforward; Nokia collects license fees depending on the number of cars sold with the navigation system installed. The last quarter saw Nokia maps generating revenue of $361 million and $40 million in operating profits, whereas for the full year the division generated $1.43 billion in revenue and an operating income of $154 million.
In the past couple of years, with falling sales and plummeting profits (which also saw a mostly unprofitable 2012 for the smartphone manufacturer), Nokia’s maps and navigation division has been the bright spot on the company’s balance sheet. It is also widely regarded as the crowning feature of the Lumia series as well as the Windows Phone 8 platform.
