After “advanced discussions” earlier this week, Nokia finally sealed the deal and bought of Alcatel-Lucent for an astounding amount of $16.6 Billion (approximately 200 Billion Rand!)
Nokia who sold most of their brand a year ago to Microsoft, kept to its pace and was wise enough to use some the money from Microsoft to buy off Alcatel-Lucent a few days ago.
Alcatel-Lucent describes itself as a leader in Internet protocol networking technology, ultra-broadband access and cloud systems. Its 2014 revenue was Estimated 13,2billionn and it has over 52 000 employees worldwide. According to a Forbes report, Nokia will become the second largest mobile manufacturer in the world, after the purchase which is made all in stock.
Forbes also reckoned that there’s a lot of overlap between the two companies in terms of products and R&D, which is code for job cuts. Nothing official has been said on that front, but speculation is that because the French government needed assurances that French jobs would be spared in the event of the sale closing (Alcatel-Lucent is based in France), most of those cuts will be to Nokia’s staff in their native Finland.
Nokia is still alive and playing a major role behind scenes and this purchase reaffirms that Nokia could be coming up with newer devices, sooner than we know.
