The Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia and German Siemens announced today the merger of their fixed and mobile telecommunications network operations in a deal worth EUR 25 billion. The 50/50 joint venture will be based in Finland and its chief executive will be Simon Beresford-Wylie, the British-born Executive Vice President and General Manager of Nokia Networks. The joint venture - Nokia Siemens Networks - will operate on a 50%/50% basis, though the majority of seats on the board of the company will be assigned to executives from the Finnish partner.
Nokia Siemens Networks will become the third largest provider of mobile network infrastructure and services in the world, behind Ericsson and the recently merged Lucent and Alcatel.
Nokia and Siemens announced the co-operation deal, worth an estimated EUR 25 billion, earlier today.
The merger aims to reduce redundant research and development spending by about EUR 1.25 billion a year.
Already in February, a German periodical called Manager Magazine reported on Siemens having negotiated with Nokia about either selling its network operations or establishing a joint venture. At the time Nokia was said to have been interested only in the German company's mobile network operations, without the fixed network arm.
Last summer, Siemens already sold its unprofitable mobile handset division to the Taiwanese BenQ company.
