Nokia Aims For Pedestrian Navigation, Not Vehicle Navigation

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) will target pedestrians for its navigation services rather than drivers, according to Michael Halbherr, the head of Nokia’s location-based activities. “It’s not really our intention to take market share away. It’s our intention to grow the market…We want to take the intelligent mapping experience to the pedestrian” Reuters quotes him as saying. Nokia entered the navigation space in a big way with the $8.1 billion buy of Navteq, and said at the time it plans to integrate mapping across a wide variety of mobile services. Halbherr added to this, indicating that Nokia plans to get its users to add content to the maps, to provide much greater detail than otherwise possible. Owning Navteq means Nokia will be able to direct its strategies in directions of little interest to the car-focused navigation industry, as well as in countries that the industry hasn’t seen worth entering (such as India). “The personal navigation devices we see today are not the basis for a long-term strategy. We are about connected devices. I think PND-mobile lines will blur,” Halbherr said. “Navigation is a technology, not a device.”

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