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Yandex Joins Bing, Yahoo In Using Nokia-Navteq Map Data

Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world: Yandex . . . has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by the leading global location content provider, NAVTEQ. These digital maps will be used in the development of […]

Greg Sterling on January 30, 2012 at 3:28 pm | Reading time: 2 minutes

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Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world:

Yandex . . . has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by the leading global location content provider, NAVTEQ. These digital maps will be used in the development of a detailed world map for the Yandex.Maps service.

NAVTEQ has provided Yandex with maps from all over the world, including highly detailed maps of Europe, North America, Australia and developed countries in Asia. These maps show intercity motorways, urban traffic networks, streets and buildings. Yandex.Maps will gradually add new content both to its desktop version and to its mobile application that supports all major platforms. Using the Yandex.Maps API, website owners can embed maps of various countries into their resources.

The company has been running a test with Navteq data in Turkey. Above is an image from Yandex Maps (pre-Navteq) of the San Francisco Bay Area. Yandex now joins Bing and Yahoo in heavily or totally relying on map data from the Nokia subsidiary.

The reliance of major search engines like Bing, Yahoo and Yandex on Navteq for mapping data sets up a kind of global divide of sorts among mapping sites “powered by” Navteq and Google Maps (and those in its network). There are other, independent mapping providers out there like deCarta as well.

Yandex recently lead a $30 million round in independent search engine Blekko. Yandex operates in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Turkey and has a presence in Palo Alto, where its Yandex Labs is based.

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