Nokia Acquires IoT Company Withings

Nokia announced on April 26 that they plan to acquire IoT company Withings for a reported $191 million. Withings make consumer-based IoT devices such as smart scales, air quality monitors, baby monitors and wearables. The company will be absorbed into Nokia’s Technolgies division and will give the company a foothold to enter the consumer IoT market. Until now they’ve had no devices of their own, only patents.

“We have said consistently that digital health was an area of strategic interest to Nokia, and we are now taking concrete action to tap the opportunity in this large and important market,” said Rajeev Suri, president and CEO of Nokia, in a statement. “With this acquisition, Nokia is strengthening its position in the IoT in a way that fits with our company purpose of expanding the human possibilities of the connected world, and puts us at the heart of a very large addressable market.”

The acquisition will also give Nokia a presence in the digital healthcare market with Withings smart health trackers,  thermometers, blood-pressure monitors and other IoT-connected healthcare devices.

“Healthcare is expected to be one of the largest vertical markets in the Internet of Things, with analysts forecasting that mobile health, with a CAGR of 37%, will be the fastest growing health care segment from 2015-2020,” Nokia stated in a post on their website.

Withings was founded in 2008 and employs 200 workers across its locations in the United States, France, and Hong Kong.

 Related:

Testing medical device integration for the IoT

Predictive medicine: how the IoT can save lives

Special report: frontiers in artificial intelligence for the IoT