 "Nokia hopes to settle tax dispute with India, positive on Microsoft deal: Elop")
Embroiled in a Rs 2,080 crore tax dispute, Finnish telecom major Nokia is in touch with the Indian government to resolve the matter, the firms executive vice-president for devices and services Stephen Elop said today.
“We are likely to resolve the tax issue with the Indian government. We will fully comply with all tax laws,” Elop told CNBC-TV18’s Malvika Jain in an exclusive interview.[caption id=“attachment_1187579” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]
Stephen Elop. AFP[/caption]
The Nokia executive had also met Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma last month to expeditiously resolve the lingering issue.
Referring to the Nokia-Microsoft deal, Elop said that Windows phone will be better funded and the business will be consolidated after the deal.
In September, Microsoft entered into a $7 billion pact to buy Nokia’s mobile phone business. It is largely believed after the deal becomes operational Microsoft will get a hardware platform in the mobile segment to compete with Google and Apple.
“Nokia scrips crossed 5.4 billion since the announcement of the deal,” Elop said.
Explaining on the integration, the Nokia executive vice-president said the Microsoft-Nokia deal will help exploit the business opportunities together and cut competition.
“Microsoft-Nokia deal will help concentrate investments and tech pooling. It will also provide job security to Nokia employees. Nokia will focus on NSN, ‘Here’ Mapping and intellectual property capability in the new set up,” he said. “The devices team at Nokia will join Microsoft after the deal becomes effective.”
The Nokia executive vice-president, however, denied that the new device launch was not linked to the new deal. Incidentally while Nokia launched Lumia 2520, Microsoft’s new tablet, the Surface 2, also hit the stands today.