Nokia is making the jump into the digital health and fitness wearables market with its purchase of French gadget maker Withings, the company announced Tuesday.
Nokia said it is planning to pay $191 million (170 million euros) in cash to acquire the company and make its way back into the consumer device market. Nokia said the purchase will also help it keep its patent portfolio fresh.
“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,” Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said in a statement. “With this acquisition, Nokia is strengthening its position in the Internet of Things in a way that leverages the power of our trusted brand, 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 where we can make a meaningful difference in peoples’ lives.”
Headquartered in France, Withings was founded in 2008 and has around 200 employees in locations in France, the United States and Hong Kong. The company’s portfolio includes both regulated and unregulated products, such as activity trackers, Wi-Fi-connected scales, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, and home and baby monitors, as well as a digital health platform. Nokia said Withings’ products are supported by an ecosystem of more than 100 compatible apps.
Nokia said it expects the transaction to close in the early part of the third quarter 2016.
The end of the year may be a busy time for Nokia.
The company, once a prominent cell phone manufacturer before the sale of its device and services business to Microsoft in 2014, has hinted it is looking to get back into the mobile device market through a brand licensing agreement. The earliest it would be able to do so would be in the final quarter of this year, per its agreement with Microsoft.
The Withings purchase comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this month that the company is planning to cut thousands of jobs in the wake of its recent merger with Alcatel-Lucent.