Nokia sells wireless modem business to Renesas Electronics for $200 million

Nokia, the world's largest mobile handset manufacturer, today agreed to sell its wireless modem business to Japan's Renesas Electronics Corporation for $200 million.

Renesas, the world's third-largest semiconductor manufacturer by sales, is also the world's top supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, SoC solutions and a broad-range of analog and power devices.

Tokyo based Renesas, which was formed through the merger of the world's two largest microcontroller suppliers, NEC Electronics Corporation and Renesas Technology Corp in April 2010, operates in 20 countries and had 2009 revenues of 471 billion yen.

The wireless modem business to be acquired by Renesas includes Nokia's wireless modem technologies for LTE, HSPA and GSM standards, which have been used for billions of handsets in the global market over the years.

As part of the deal, the Espoo, Finland-based Nokia will also transfer certain patents related to the transferred technology asset. The planned transfer would also include approximately 1,100 Nokia R&D professionals, the vast majority of whom are located in Finland, India, the UK and Denmark.

"Wireless modems are an integral part of today's chipset solutions, and we believe that Renesas Electronics, as one of the key chipset vendors in the market, is in an ideal position to further develop this offering. The alliance enables us to continue to focus on our own core businesses, connecting people to what matters to them with our mobile products and solutions," said Kai Oistamo, executive vice president, Nokia.