Nokia announced back in April 2016 that it intended to acquire French digital health company Withings and it closed the deal a year later in June 2017. That’s when Withings became a part of the Finnish company and was then known as Nokia Health. Less than a year after the deal was closed, Nokia hasn’t been able to find a direction for its health division and has been trying to find a buyer for it. The company has reportedly talked with the likes of Google and Samsung but apparently, it wasn’t able to reach an agreement. Nokia has now entered into exclusive talks with Withings co-founder and former chairman Éric Carreel who just might buy it back from Nokia.
Nokia formally announced in February 2018 that it had started a review of strategic options for the digital health business. It’s selling this division to becoming a business-to-business and licensing company, meaning that it doesn’t even want to make fitness-focused hardware anymore.
It’s now exclusively negotiating a sale of the division with Withings co-founder Éric Carreel and Nokia expects that the deal could be clinched in late Q2 2018. Talk about coming full circle. No financial terms have been disclosed by the company in its press release today.
It’s unclear what will happen to the products that were launched by this division once the deal is closed. Whether or not Carreel will be able to guide the division back to better days remains to be seen.
Filed in . Read more about Nokia and Withings. Source: nokia