Reports suggest that Amazon is in talks with a consortium of German automakers to buy stake in the high-definition digital mapping company HERE. We don’t think Amazon is diversifying into autonomous cars – as yet, this prospective move appears to be part of a broader deal to lock the consortium into Amazon’s cloud computing services. Last year, BMW, AUDI and Mercedes bought Nokia’s mapping business ‘HERE’ for $ 2.8 billion as part of their plans to develop autonomous cars. This consortium of car makers has since been negotiating with potential new partners for HERE. Apart from gaining a big client for its cloud computing business, we believe the mapping technology could be part of Amazon’s ambitious plans for faster, low cost delivery in specific metropolitan areas.

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