EU greenlights Nokia’s acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent

The proposed purchase of Alcatel-Lucent by Nokia has been approved by the European Commission after it found the deal would not raise competitive concerns. 

"The commission found that, despite the merged entity having combined market shares around or above 30 percent for several specific types of equipment, the overlaps between the two companies' activities are effectively limited," it said in a statement.

It added that Nokia had a strong presence in Europe, where Alcatel-Lucent was small, with the positions reversed in North America.

Nokia announced in April an all-share deal then worth A$22 billion to buys its smaller French rival, building up its telecom equipment business to compete with market leader Ericsson.

The combined group would rank behind Ericsson and complete with China's Huawei and Korea's Samsung.

The deal is another milestone in Nokia's transition from a company with major interests in consumer markets to an operation focused primarily on business and industry clients. 

Nokia's inability to keep pace with the mobile market resulted in the acquisition of its handset business by Microsoft which reported a A$4.3 billion loss in its most recent financial results as a result of writing down losses in part due to charges related to the Nokia business.  

Earlier this year, the Finnish company sparked a bidding war between car manufacturers and Uber for its HERE maps business.