The leading global mobile device manufacturer Nokia is acquiring the American company that produces the mobile internet browser Novarra to enhance the capabilities of its own mobile phones when browsing the internet, reports Ciol.com.
It is anticipated that this year could see a real explosion in mobile internet, primarily due to the fierce battle between leading mobile manufacturers and Apple’s iPhone. In line with these predictions, Nokia has made this acquisition hoping to get closer to the simplicity of internet content browsing offered by the famous iPhone. The next billion people will connect to the internet via mobile devices, explained Niklas Savander, head of Nokia’s Business Sector. Resourceful users had been using mobile phones to access the internet long before 2007, but since the emergence of the iPhone that year, internet usage on mobile phones has taken on a whole new dimension. Since then, all leading manufacturers have been striving to catch up with the iPhone, either by acquiring a new internet browser or by purchasing entire companies that produce them or by investing in the production of their own internet browser.
It is well known that Nokia defined mobile telephony and made it extremely important in the global market, but it is also known that Nokia’s method of internet browsing is much inferior to what leading names in the market offer, stated Espen Torgersen, an analyst at Carnegie. Shares of Novarra’s main competitor Opera rose by 1.3 percent to 23.90 crowns on the Oslo Stock Exchange following the announcement of this news. Nokia did not disclose the value of the acquisition of this company with more than a hundred employees and added that the deal will be finalized by the end of June. Nokia will utilize Novarra’s technology on its Series 40 mobile phones, which are the most widely used. In its more advanced mobile phones, it has used its own browser, and in its best model N900, it uses Mozilla’s Firefox. The Finnish telecom giant confirmed that it will continue to maintain relationships with Novarra’s leading clients, which include Verizon, British Vodafone, Yahoo, Turkcell, and three other clients in Italy and Hong Kong. Nokia’s shares rose by 0.4 percent after the announcement of this acquisition, reaching 11.57 euros. (T. Vi.)
