Nokia will follow Google, offering free maps on its cellphones, in a move to boost handset sales and prices, but one that will hit other satnav players.
Nokia hopes free navigation will bolster its flagging position in the global smartphone market. It still sells more smartphones than any of its rivals, but it has lost ground to Apple and RIM.
“It will help us to sell smartphones,” Anssi Vanjoki, head of marketing at Nokia, told Reuters in an interview. “It will serve as a defence to our product prices.”
Google started in late 2009 to offer free navigation on Motorola’s Droid model smartphones in the North American market.
Nokia offering free navigation on some 20 million smartphones is set to hurt key players on the global navigation market, including TomTom and Garmin.
Do you Want to say something?