Alternative transportation outfit Uber Inc. has yet to make any major acquisitions, but that could be about to change, with rumors emerging that its entered the race to snap up Nokia’s mapping product HERE, according to The New York Times.

That Nokia is looking to get rid of HERE is no secret. The company said last month that it was considering selling off the business in order to fund its recently announced $15.6 billion acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. At the time that deal was announced, Nokia said it was initiating “a review of strategic options for its Here business” which “may or may not lead to a transaction”.

Nokia’s announcement quickly led to speculation that companies like Apple, Amazon and Facebook might all be eyeing up a bid. After all, HERE’s maps are pretty much second-to-none after Google Maps, and it’s certainly far superior anything the above companies have. More recently, just this week in fact, it was reported that German automobile manufacturers BMW AG, Audi AG, and Mercedes-Benz, together with China’s Baidu Inc., were all teaming up on a bid to buy the mapping software, in order to secure a car navigation solution for themselves that isn’t Google Maps or another service that they don’t have full control over.

But now they have some serious competition on their hands, according to “three people with knowledge of the matter” who told the New York Times that Uber has submitted a bid for HERE in the region of $3 billion.

So far, Uber has refused to comment on the speculation, but a bid would certainly make sense. For one thing, Uber is flush with cash having recently picked up $1.2 billion in a private equity funding round, taking its valuation to a massive $41 billion. Moreover, Uber’s drivers generally have to rely on Google Maps to navigate their way around – buying HERE would allow the company to supply its drivers with their own in-house navigation tool. And as the NYT points out, HERE already has an 80 percent share of the car navigation systems market.

Uber has already expressed an interest in mapping technology, what with its recent acquisition of deCarta Inc., a cloud-based mapping software firm. While deCarta’s maps are already pretty good, HERE would add voice-controlled navigation features and offline mapping support.

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