Google has finalised the acquisition of Israel-based crowd-sourced traffic navigation app Waze in a deal that is reportedly worth $1.03bn.

The deal included several months of acquisition talks with other major companies, which are thought to have been Apple, Facebook and Yahoo.

Google is set to improve Google Maps by adding several traffic update features offered by Waze. It also plans to enhance Waze services with its own search capabilities.

Google vice president Brian McClendon said in an official Google blog post that the product development team at Waze will remain in Israel and operate separately for now.

"The deal included several months of acquisition talks with other major companies, which are thought to have been Apple, Facebook and Yahoo."

In a separate post, Waze chief executive Noam Bardin said: "We are excited about the prospect of working with the Google Maps team to enhance our search capabilities and to join them in their ongoing efforts to build the best map of the world."

Waze is a free smartphone app, which combines GPS navigation software and social networking features, enabling users to make additions and improve the directions and traffic reports provided by the service.

Waze’s crowd-sourcing feature allows the app to adapt to varying road conditions, such as speed traps and accidents in real time.

Waze, which was founded four years ago, currently has 47 million users across the world.