Alain de Taeye, CEO of digital map maker Tele Atlas, has said it is wrong to assume there are only four players in the digital navigation world—Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Navteq, Tom Tom and TeleAtlas, because such a notion discounts Google, reports Reuters. De Taeye, speaking at the Reuters Global TMT summit in Paris, noted that it was often thought that the Nokia-Navteq combination would take the pedestrian market for digital maps, while the Tom Tom-Tele Atlas tie-up would grab the automotive side. But the Tele Atlas CEO said that this was not necessarily so, and questioned whether it was more relevant in the pedestrian world that they were owned by Tom Tom, or in fact, already have Google (NSDQ: GOOG) as a “big customer.” (Has de Taeye forgotten that Navteq also supplies Google?)

Nokia’s Maps product is one of the Finnish handset maker’s cornerstones for its range of internet services. Search head Jussi Pekka Partanen noted in a recent interview with mocoNews.net that the service was getting “real” traction with consumers, who were increasingly coming back to use it a few times a day. Nokia today announced a partnership with Orange in which it hopes to yield 10 million active Mobile Maps users by 2010. Nokia also announced today an update for Nokia Maps is now available. The maps application, which Nokia says has already been downloaded 240,000 times since February, improves car navigation and pedestrian navigation, has added multimedia city guides, and now has satellite images. Nokia is still awaiting EU clearance on its proposed acquisition of Navteq, but are hopeful that the deal will be approved. A week ago, Tom Tom’s purchase of Tele Atlas got the all clear, with the EC hinting that Nokia’s deal—which it called similar to the Tom Tom’s—would go through as well.

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