NSN to acquire Motorola's wireless infrastructure assets

As part of the transaction, NSN expects to gain incumbent relationships with more than 50 operators and to strengthen its position with China Mobile, Clearwire, KDDI, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone.

NSN expects that, based on revenue − with the addition of the Motorola wireless-network infrastructure business − it will become the number three wireless-infrastructure vendor in the US and the number one foreign wireless vendor in Japan, while strengthening its current number two position in the global infrastructure market.

Motorola’s networks-infrastructure business provides products and services for wireless networks, including GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE. The business has 41 WiMAX contracts in 21 countries, 30 active CDMA networks in 22 countries and 80 active GSM networks in 66 countries.

Approximately 7,500 employees are expected to transfer to NSN from Motorola when the transaction closes, including those at large research and development sites in the US, China and India. Motorola is to retain its iDEN business, substantially all the patents related to its wireless-network infrastructure business and other selected assets.

NSN and Motorola are also exploring a global relationship in the public-safety arena.