Nokia to acquire Alcatel Lucent

April 15, 2015: Nokia, the Finnish telecom OEM vendor is known to have finalized the buy out of France based another telecom OEM conglomerate Alcatel-Lucent at USD 16.6 billion. Both vendors have been struggling to have greater share in the world with rife competition from European Ericsson and Asian Huawei. Nokia, after buyout of all shares of the conglomerate NSN (Nokia Siemens Network) and sell out of their Mobile handset business to Microsoft, has been focused more on the technology development (specially 5G), telecom infra deals and growing Here Mapping service. 

The acquisition will make Nokia second in the global market share, some percentage lower than Ericsson and ahead of  Huawei. There were ups and downs of the share price of both company, once the news of talks rumor surfaced. Some analysts even claimed that the acquisition is to benefit Alcatel more than that of Nokia and some even argue that the merger of two weak players wont make a strong player. The deal (yet to be completed) is also seen by many as a daunting task since huge job cuts that is most likely after acquisition, might raise eyebrows of French Government/Politicians who are much conscious for job protection.

File photo: My Nokia Xpress Music with field test app

It is also found that Nokia is eyeing on the lucrative US market for internet routing and wireless industry that have high profitable margins. Nokia, the pioneer telecom vendor for GSM, and once a giant for handset has come down significantly over the years, due to challenges from cheap Chinese OEM in telecom and Samsung, Apple for Smartphone business. Let's see how will this acquisition culminate in coming days but one thing I am dead sure that my all time fav Nokia will certainly bounce back. Though I have not worked with any Nokia telecom equipment till now, I have big fancy love for the Nokia phones esp. Nokia 5800 Music Express (which is still with me unbroken and usable).