Corp. on Wednesday completed the acquisition of Multimap, one of U.K.'s top online mapping companies at undisclosed amount, in a move to boost its advertising business.

The deal will allow Microsoft to get location and mapping technology that it will integrate with its existing technology such as Virtual Earth, Live Search and Windows Live services.

The acquisition will play a significant role in the future growth of our search business and presents a huge opportunity to expand our platform business beyond the U.K. and globally, said Sharon Baylay, general manager at Microsoft's Online Services group.

Microsoft said Multimap, an Internet maps and location based services company will help the firm expand its location-based search engine and advertising platforms.

Multimap is one of Europe's leading popular mapping Web sites as its services are available on the mobile phones and personal digital assistants, providing street-level maps, photography and travel directions to users in the U.K., Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and U.S.

Multimap was offering advertising services by allowing its users to find and book hotel and restaurant reservations online, as well as buying historic and aerial photos, making it a boost to Microsoft's advertising business.

Microsoft and Google had a stiff competition in the mapping space market although Google led the market with its Google Maps and Google Earth products.

According to Nielsen Online, a research company, Microsoft's Windows Live Maps service, in October, had 7.1 million unique users worldwide compared to Google Maps with 71.5 million, Google Earth 22.7 million and Multimap 1.4 million.

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