Nokia(NOK) is buying connected-devices maker Withings for €170 million ($192 million) to aid its push into digital health technology.
Withings makes a wide range of devices, from the Activite smartwatch to home security cameras, baby monitors, connected scales, thermometers, and blood-pressure monitors.
As Nokia Technologies president Ramzi Haidamus recently told Coins2Day, the Finnish firm is looking at digital health as a sector that “comes very natural to Nokia” due to its reputation for reliability.
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Haidamus said Tuesday that Withings shared Nokia’s vision for “the future of digital health.”
“Combining their award-winning products and talented people with the world-class expertise and innovation of Nokia Technologies uniquely positions us to lead the next wave of innovation in digital health,” he said.
The deal, expected to close early in Q3 this year, would establish a new Nokia Digital Health Business headed up by Withings CEO Cedric Hutchings. Withings already empoloys around 200 people across Paris, Cambridge, MA, and Hong Kong.
For more on digital health, watch:
Nokia may no longer be a phone manufacturer, but after it sold off that business to Microsoft, it retained a strong brand — and crucially, that advanced technologies business, which is also responsible for the Ozo virtual reality camera that has Disney so excited.
Don’t forget, Nokia once made paper and rubber boots. Reinvention is what the company does.