Google will merge mapping service Waze with Maps Product Teams

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Reuters —

Google said on Thursday it would merge teams working on mapping service Waze and products like Google Maps, starting Dec. 9, in an effort to consolidate processes.

The Alphabet Inc-owned company will integrate Waze, which it acquired in 2013 for $1 billion, into Google Geo, its portfolio of real-world mapping products that includes Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View, a spokesperson said. by Google.

Waze CEO Neha Parikh will be leaving the company after a transition period, Google said, adding that Waze will continue to be a standalone app, with around 151 million monthly active users worldwide.

By bringing the Waze team into the Geos portfolio of real-world mapping products, the teams will benefit from further increased technical collaboration, the spokesperson said.

In a July 12 letter, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said the company would streamline processes and consolidate investments where they overlap.

In February 2021, former top executive of Waze, Noam Bardin said that he had struggled to grow within Google and that Waze could probably have grown faster and much more efficiently if we had remained independent.

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