Nokia targets pedestrians with Navteq acquisition

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) aims to produce better maps for pedestrians and with their help after completing its $8.1 billion acquisition of map supplier Navteq NVT.N, leaving the car-navigation market largely to others.

"It's not really our intention to take market share away. It's our intention to grow the market," Michael Halbherr, the head of Nokia's location-based activities, said on Thursday.

"We want to take the intelligent mapping experience to the pedestrian," he told the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecoms conference in Barcelona.

Nokia's agreed bid for digital mapmaker Navteq, the biggest in its history, cast a spotlight on the fast-growing navigation industry and was quickly followed by a bidding war for Tele Atlas (TA.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Navteq's only global rival in mapmaking.

TomTom (TOM2.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), currently the highest bidder for Tele Atlas with an offer valuing it at 2.9 billion euros ($4.2 billion), said it would remain focused on car navigation but Tele Atlas would likely still supply handset makers.

TomTom Chief Executive Harold Goddijn said it was unclear how Nokia's entry into the market would change the competitive landscape but said it removed the worry that Tele Atlas customers might switch to another independent mapmaker.

Nokia's Halbherr said Nokia's aim was to bring detailed maps for pedestrians to the hundreds of millions of Nokia phone users worldwide, enlisting the help of those same customers to keep its maps up to date.

"Mapping will go to the next level. That's one of the things where communities can help," Halbherr said. "We have the world's biggest media-capture device. It means people can capture content, put it on the map and share it with others."

Halbherr said owning a mapmaker meant Nokia would be able to direct its own strategy in areas previously of little interest to a car-focused industry.