Nokia acquires Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion

The Finnish concern Nokia is acquiring the French telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent for an amount of 15.6 billion euros. Nokia is still investigating what to do with its Here branch for location services, which means that a sale is a possibility.

The takeover will create a large European telecom group with 40,000 research employees and an R&D budget of 4.7 billion euros, Nokia claims. The companies will jointly focus on developing technology for growth markets such as 5G, cloud networks, sensors and imaging.

To emphasize the French contribution, Nokia is setting up a fund with a budget of 100 million euros that will support start-ups in France in the field of internet-of-things. In addition, there will be a research facility in the field of digital security in France.

However, Nokia’s headquarters will remain in Finland and the company will be called Nokia Corporation. Nokia expects the acquisition to be completed in the first half of 2016. As early as 2013, reports appeared that Nokia was interested in Alcatel-Lucent. It is still unclear what will happen to the Here branch of Nokia. That branch, responsible for the floor plan services, would be up for sale, according to previous rumors. Nokia itself says it is looking at all strategic options and that a sale is possible, but not certain.