Nokia Health acquired by Samsung within a few months?

It has been a while now since we know that Nokia wants to sell its Health branch, Nokia Health, mainly made up of the assets of Withings, the company acquired in 2016.

Nokia Health could therefore very soon change hands. Two French companies and another non-European company would be very interested. But not that … According to the Monde, Samsung would also be in the running for the takeover. A Samsung official refuted the rumor. But impossible to know more since “Samsung does not comment on rumor or speculation”. Anyway, if Samsung wants to buy Nokia Health, the South Korean company has ample means.

The history of the Nokia Health sale to date

We recently learned, in an internal memo, that Nokia had launched a strategic review of its digital health division, and that ended with the decision to sell these assets. Although Nokia bought Withings for 170 million euros in 2016, Nokia never managed to make the brand flourish. On the contrary, since it is today valued at 141 million euros.

Then, rumors of a takeover by Nest began to circulate on the net. But following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the French government fears that a sale to Google, in the current climate, could be frowned upon. According to my sources, timing is important for another reason: The French government has launched an initiative to boost the country’s AI efforts. The government is pushing for Nokia to sell to a French company in the hope that it will help support the initiative. Bad news for Nest… Finally, the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will come into force on May 25 throughout the EU, is not good news for the American brand either.

At the same time, Google is expanding its presence in France with a new AI research center and a larger workforce in the country. A source hypothesized that the ideal outcome would be for Google to invest instead in French companies wishing to buy Nokia Health; rather than buying it outright. What we do not know at the moment is whether Nokia will hang on to certain assets of its healthcare division such as the B2B segment, or whether everything will be sold. The first sale will be the Nokia Sleep tracker. The sale will take place this month.

It’s easy to see why Google and Samsung would be interested in acquiring Nokia’s healthcare and artificial intelligence products. Both companies are interested in the future of healthcare technology. Nokia told Wareable that its strategic review is still ongoing at this time.

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