Nokia Versus Google Over Online Mapping

Nokia has reported it is globally launching version 2.0 of Nokia Maps within a couple of weeks, a subscription mapping service available on its handsets.

Nokia’s mapping service, which comes from mapmaker Navteq, will put the Finnish phone giant in direct competition with companies like Google and Yahoo, which offer Internet-based mobile mapping services for mobiles, as well as GPS device makers like Garmin, TomTom, and Mio.

For its part, Nokia says it expects to sell over 35 million GPS-equipped phones this year alone.

Nokia Maps requires subscribers to first buy the maps database, and then pay a subscription fee for updates three times a year.
Although Nokia claims its strategy with its mapping service is not to take customers away from Google and Yahoo, its fanciful to assume that those using a Nokia handset would have any valid reason to use the other providers services.