Nokia to tie up with Alcatel?

According to a recent Reuters article, Nokia may be looking into buying Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless network business. The article suggests that rumours of a tie-up between the two companies has been ongoing for some time and with Nokia actively pursuing a new road-map for itself, now may be the time to strike.

Nokia is in a “period of reflection trying to figure out what they want to do,” one of the sources said. They said there were possibilities for Nokia such as having “the option to buy the entire Alcatel-Lucent, or just the wireless business … Nothing is imminent.”

Nokia currently face strong competition from Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE in the networks business, with a market share of 18%. However the addition of Alcatel’s business would increase their share to 30% (just behind Ericsson) and open up a bigger presence in the US market where NSN currently struggles.

Personally on a very high level this looks like it could possibly be a good idea if Nokia do end up moving away from consumer devices. However it comes down to how high Alcatel-Lucent would be valued (estimated between 1.1 – 1.5 billion euros) along with the proposed future vision for Nokia (when’s its truly figured out).

Source: Reuters

Thanks to Kaizer for the tip!

Tags: Alcatel, NSN

Category: Nokia