ESPOO, Aug 20 — Nokia Oyj said Michael Halbherr, head of the Finnish company’s digital-maps unit, is stepping down to pursue entrepreneurial interests.

Halbherr is resigning effective September 1, the Espoo, Finland-based wireless-technology company said today in a statement. Cliff Fox, a senior vice president at the maps unit, called Here, will become the division’s acting head.

Nokia is seeking to make the maps unit stronger against rivals such as Google Inc to broaden its revenue sources beyond wireless-network equipment. The company is reshaping itself and expanding into new fields after selling its mobile-phone unit to Microsoft Corp for about US$7.5 billion (RM24 billion) in April.

Nokia built its location-technologies business by buying Chicago-based map provider Navteq Corp for US$8.1 billion in 2008 and 3-D map-technology maker Earthmine Inc in 2012. Nokia provides map data to Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft, Yahoo! Inc and about four out of five car-navigation systems.

“Now the time is right for me to focus once again on entrepreneurial activities,” Halbherr said in the statement. — Bloomberg