Nokia reportedly targeting Apple to buy its HERE Maps division

Nokia HERE 1.0 for iOS iPhone screenshot 005

Bloomberg reports that Apple is among the list of companies Nokia is hoping will purchase its struggling HERE Maps, as it seeks to cut divisions that are losing money.

According to the publication’s anonymous source, Nokia is seeking more than 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) from a sale of the unit. It’s selling HERE Maps for the “ubiquity and utility” of its location-based services.

If the sale were to go through for the $3.2 billion that Nokia is seeking, it would be quite the loss for Nokia, who kept HERE maps following the acquisition of its device unit by Microsoft. Nokia purchased the mapping assets in 2008 for $8.1 billion, and they were worth about $2 billion last year, according to Nokia’s financial reports.

Launched in 2012, HERE Maps could potentially improve the mapping services of the purchaser. It not only has location content like road networks, buildings, parks and traffic patterns that it licenses to companies like Garmin, BMW, Oracle, and Amazon, but also a consumer-facing product that’s similar to Google Maps and Apple Maps.

Past Apple, Nokia is also working to sell the HERE Maps assets to Facebook, Baidu, Sirius XM, Harman, a group of German automakers, and private equity firms. It’s not clear who is the most interested in buying, if any.

For its future, Nokia is focusing on mobile-network equipment and services to better compete with Huawei Technologies, and a recent report also said it has plans to make an Android smartphone in 2016.