June/July 2008

It looks as though the sale of Navteq and Tele Atlas, the world's two big digital map developers for the satnav market, are both going through as planned.

Nokia has received unconditional approval from the European Commission for its planned acquisition of Navteq, and TomTom says the public offer process for its acquisition of Tele Atlas has been completed. As a result of this, de-listing of Tele Atlas on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange was due on 30 July.

Both mapping companies sell their products widely for both satellite navigation systems and a variety of print and Internet mapping applications, in transport and other markets.

When they announced their plans to acquire these companies, both Nokia and TomTom emphasised that they would continue to serve third-party customers under their new ownership. It is hard in fact to see how they could draw full value from the acquisitions without holding good to this promise.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen exactly how the mapping world will evolve now that two such high-profile players have parents with their own interest in mapping.