In April this year, Nokia fans got the good news that Nokia is planning to buy the french Alcatel-Lucent. Now the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has approved the Nokia – Alcatel purchase. The U.S. Department of Justice approved the Nokia deal earlier, which means that now the way is free for what could potentially make Nokia – Alcatel one of the biggest telecom-gear producers’s worldwide.

After countless speculation about the future of Nokia, Nokia announced in April to buying its rival Alcatel for 15.6 billion euros (17.68 Billion USD). The EU’s Antitrust commitees already approved the deal earlier, noting that the two companies would still face strong competition, without danger of a monopoly.

The deal will probably close in the first half of 2016. While most of the press calls the deal, a combination of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent, its really an acquisition by Nokia. Nokia offered their shares for a 0.55 to 1 ratio to Alcatel-Lucent Shareholders. That means after the deal Nokia shareholders will have 66.5% of the shares and Alcatel shareholders the remaining 33.5% of the combined company.

The new cooperation will be called Nokia Corporation and still be headed in Finland, the origin of Nokia smartphones. AL, similar to Nokia Networks is working on networking equipment. Combined revenues for 2014 were close to 26 Billion Euro. With the two companies combined, their more then 40.000 employees in R&D will focus on development of 5G, Internet of Things and also cloud services.

With this the Nokia Cooperation will become a direct competitor to Huawei and Ericsson. Ericsson holds the largest share of ireless network equipment industry at 40% and Huawei 20% as the cost leader. The new formed Nokia – ALcatel company will have 35% immediately.

Since Nokia sold their phone division to Microsoft last year, for 7.2 Billion they have focused mainly on network equipment, location services and patent licensing. Alcatel-Lucent is not directly connected to the phone maker Alcatel, many news missing this important piece of information.

We want to end with a good note for all Nokia Smartphone fans. Here an excerpt from the Nokia-Microsoft Deal: “Upon the closing of the transaction, Nokia would be restricted from licensing the Nokia brand for use in connection with mobile device sales for 30 months and from using the Nokia brand on Nokia’s own mobile devices until December 31, 2015.”

This means as of January 2016, Nokia is free to use the Nokia brand for smartphone sales. With the release of the Nokia C1 we might very well see the first Nokia Android Phone in 2016. Source: TheStreet.com