Nokia is the world’s largest cell phone maker and for good reason. They find the emerging trends in the marketplace and jump all over them. They’ve got mobiles with multi-megapixel cameras, powerful media players, and now they’re going to tackle the navigation market with much vigour. Nokia has just announced that they will be purchasing German firm gate5, “a leading supplier of mapping, routing and navigation software and services.”

Nokia is anticipating massive growth in the world of GPS navigation, especially in the handy little gadgets each and every one of us carry around on a daily basis: the ubiquitous cell phone. According to Nokia exec Anssi Vanjoki, mobile navigation “hasn’t developed as fast as expected by the market”, but they’re more than certain that it will be a big thing in the years to come.

We expect deep GPS integration in future editions of Nokia’s N-series “multimedia computers”. gate5 isn’t the largest company on the block, with only 70 employees, but this marks a major step in Nokia’s quest to venture into (and make a big splash in) the cell phone GPS market.