NEW DELHI—Nokia Corp. is focusing more on its map service as the Finnish company looks for new sources of growth after selling its handset business to Microsoft Corp.
The company is looking to get its HERE digital map service into more cellphones, more cars and more big companies that use the service to track products and people, Michael Halbherr, executive vice president for location and commerce for HERE business at Nokia, told The Wall Street Journal.
"Our strategy is straight, most companies out there don't have a map asset," said Mr. Halbherr who reports to Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa. "We have become a neutral supplier to everybody who doesn't have their own map asset."
In India, Nokia Thursday launched a program to add information, such as on streets and bridges, that is currently missing from its map service.
The growing demand for digital mapping and location technology is increasingly grabbing the attention of the world's dominant technology firms, including Google Inc. and Apple Inc.
In 2008, Nokia paid $8.1 billion to buy Navteq, a company that provided the underlying digital mapping information that is used by Global Positioning System navigation devices and Internet services.
Today, Nokia's mapping service, renamed HERE, is one of the three businesses the company will keep after Microsoft takes over the Finnish company's handset business following a $7 billion deal that was announced in September. The other two are its network solutions and advanced technologies businesses.
HERE has mapped more than 190 countries and offers real-time traffic information in 34 countries. It competes with Google and Apple in offering map and navigation services on cellphones.
Nokia's HERE counts global auto makers Ford Motor Co., Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Audi AG and Toyota Motor Corp., as well as technology companies SAP AG and Oracle Corp. as its clients. It also provides HERE maps to Amazon.com Inc. and Yahoo! Inc.
HERE's business was the only Nokia business that saw net sales grow in 2012, though they only edged up 1% from the year earlier. Sales at Nokia's devices and services business that year fell by 34% and its network business sales were down 2%.
During 2012, HERE's business contributed only 4% to Nokia's overall net sales, while 51% of its sales came in from its devices and services business and the remaining 45% from network solutions.
After the devices business deal is finished, Microsoft will continue to pay a license fee to HERE for four years and will become one of its top three clients. The licensing deal extends to Microsoft websites as well as Windows phones, Mr. Halbherr said.
In India, HERE Thursday launched what it calls a community mapping pilot program, where more than 1,000 people from the company will work with local experts from over a dozen Indian universities to add information, such as on streets and bridges, missing from its service.
Meanwhile, Google launched its Street View service in New Delhi Thursday, by adding information on India's 100 national monuments on its service.
Street View was first launched in 2007 and is operating in 28 countries. It is a feature available on Google Maps that allows users to explore or navigate a neighborhood through panoramic street-level images.
—Sven Grundberg in Stockholm contributed to this article.Write to R. Jai Krishna at krishna.jai@wsj.com
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