Baidu teams up with Nokia navigation business Here

PanARMENIAN.Net - Search giant Baidu has made no secret of its ambitions to expand its business outside of China by way of mobile services. Now it’s struck a deal with Nokia that could help it with that by serving domestic users abroad, TechCrunch reports.

Nokia’s mapping and navigation business Here says that it will now power maps for Baidu outside of China, specifically aiming the service at the large number of Chinese “globetrotters” — currently ranking as the world’s largest outbound tourism market.

Here will power both desktop as well as Android and iOS apps, starting with Taiwan first and then adding other territories at a later stage.

While Baidu offers extensive mapping services in China — one of the key components, apparently, in a reported investment deal that Baidu is making in car service Uber — it’s less good on that data outside of its domestic market, TechCrunch says.

Here is a natural partner for the company, in that it’s not a direct competitor as Google might be, and it has just announced an update that will make its mapping apps available across all Google Play markets and Android devices, and is finally re-publishing a new iOS app in early 2015, after pulling it in 2013.

Its parent company Nokia, meanwhile, has also been focusing a lot on the China market for years now and so will have some existing Chinese language expertise and IP that it can use to develop custom maps in the language covering other territories. It offers maps for nearly 200 countries, with turn-by-turn navigation for 118 of them.

According to the China National Tourism Association (via China Travel Guide) the number Chinese travellers visiting foreign countries have grown drastically over the last several years as China’s economy has expanded its number of moneyed citizens has grown. In 2013, 98.19 million Chinese people travelled abroad, up 18% on 2012 and totalling $128.7b in expenditures (up 27% on the year before).

It estimates that in 2014 that number will have risen to 114 million with total expenditure of $140 billion.

“Every day, millions of people count on Here to explore the world and discover new places whether at home or on the go,” Bruno Bourguet, SVP and head of sales for Here, said in a statement. “Together with Baidu, a new customer for us, we want to help the growing number of Chinese tourists get the most from their travels.”