05/18/2016, Wed, 15:11, Moscow time , Text: Sergey Popsulin
Microsoft has agreed to sell its mobile phone business for $350 million. One of the buyers was the young Finnish company HMD Global Oy, which Nokia has already agreed to license its brand for 10 years.
Sale of telephone business
Microsoft announced that it has reached an agreement to sell the handset business it acquired from Nokia to FIH Mobile (a subsidiary of Hon Hai Technology Group) and HMD Global Oy for $350 million. FIH Mobile will acquire Microsoft Mobile Vietnam as part of the deal. Microsoft Mobile Vietnam is a phone manufacturing plant located in Hanoi in Vietnam.
"As part of the deal, Microsoft will transfer all assets related to entry-level mobile phones, including brand names, software and services, a service network and other assets, including partner contacts and key supply contracts," Microsoft said, stressing that we are talking only about simple mobile phones, not smartphones.
After the closing of the transaction, about 4.5 thousand employees will transfer or get the opportunity to work in FIH Mobile or HMD Global.
Microsoft will continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile and support Lumia smartphones such as the Lumia 650, Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL, as well as phones from OEM partners such as Acer, Alcatel, HP, Trinity and Vaio, the corporation added.
Nokia mobile phones will soon return to the world market
The expected closing date for the transaction is the second half of 2016, subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions.
Return of Nokia
Today, May 18, 2016, in parallel with Microsoft's announcement of the sale of its telephone business, Nokia announced the licensing of its brand and technologies to HMD Global Oy. Under the signed agreement, HMD Global Oy will be able to use the Nokia trademark to sell mobile phones and tablets worldwide for 10 years. At the same time, within three years, HMD Global Oy undertakes to spend $500 million to promote the Nokia brand in the mobile phone and tablet markets.
The Nokia press service did not say that HMD Global Oy would produce smartphones under the Nokia brand. It was only about mobile phones (mobile phones) and tablets (tablets). The word "smartphones" (smartphones) also appeared in the message of the press service. In particular, it was said that HMD Global Oy was also going to release smartphones, but it was not noted that these smartphones would be sold under the Nokia brand.
HMD Global Oy is a newly established private company in Helsinki. It is managed by natives of Nokia. CEO of the company - Arto Nambela(Arto Nummela), one of the former Nokia executives, who currently holds the position of head of the Asian division of Microsoft Mobile Devices. President of HMD Global Oy - Florian Sheikhe(Florian Seiche), currently Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Microsoft Mobile Europe. In the past, he has held senior positions at Nokia and HTC.
Another part of the business
Since Microsoft sold the business to two companies, HMD Global Oy will only own part of it (the share is not specified). The second part will be held by FIH Mobile.
FIH Mobile is a subsidiary of Taiwan's Hon Hai Technology Group, also known as Foxconn. Hon Hai Technology Group is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer. It manufactures products for many global brands, including Apple, Sony, Google, Microsoft, etc. The iPhone, iPad, Xbox, PlayStation and other popular products leave its conveyors, among other things.
Nokia has already agreed with FIH Mobile on cooperation. All three parties - Nokia, HMD Global Oy and FIH Mobile - have signed an agreement to jointly support the Nokia brand in the global phone and tablet markets. The agreements reached imply that HMD will gain control over sales, marketing and distribution of Nokia-branded mobile devices. In turn, FIH will provide manufacturing facilities, access to parts manufacturers and the design department.
Sale of mobile business of Nokia
In September 2013, Microsoft's Nokia mobile business for 5.4 billion euros. The parties agreed that Microsoft will be able to use the Finnish brand for 10 years from the date of signing the agreement. Nokia has pledged not to license its brand to other vendors until December 2015 and not to release mobile phones (including smartphones) under the Nokia brand.
Articles and Lifehacks
The Finnish company Nokia is one of the largest manufacturers of phones, whose products are produced in more than 130 countries around the world.
The company has several factories where Nokia phones are produced, located in Finland, Romania, Mexico, Hungary, America, Brazil, Korea, and India.
In China, there are two sites for the manufacture of mobile phones. Until 2008, there was also a plant in Germany, but it was closed, and production was eventually transferred to Romania.
Many experienced users note a huge difference from where Nokia phones are manufactured: in Hungary or in China. The Chinese assembly is superior in quality to the Hungarian one: the parts are attached more neatly and securely.
And in return, new sites for the manufacture of Nokia mobile phones will appear in India, China and Taiwan.
This will reduce production costs by 15-30 times, which is a very right decision in a situation of intense competition with Apple and Samsung products.
Have you noticed that in the past year we have repeatedly thought about Nokia smartphones? And not in a retrospective format, but in connection with the release of new cool smartphones. All because the brand got a second wind.
Personally, I'm glad to see the Finnish legend again, because it touched so many of us. But what do you remember about Nokia? Ringtone yes "3310th"? It won't work, it's time to refresh your memory.
There were many facts in the history of Nokia that many do not know or have forgotten. Therefore, I have prepared a list below. It's time to remember 20 Legendary Facts related to the development of the Finnish brand.
The beginning of history is considered to be 1865, when the mining engineer Frederic Idestam founded a small paper mill. In 1871 it was renamed Nokia Ab.
It's the Nokia logo! No kidding.
In 1967, three companies merged: Finnish Rubber Works, Finnish Cable Works merged into Nokia Ab. Moreover, Nokia was the smallest, but it was profitable under the then legislation. The combined company had five main businesses: rubber products, cables, electronics, wood processing, and power generation.
In the 1980s, Nokia Data's computer division was manufacturing the MikroMikko PC. It was a step towards the business PC market. The first model MikroMikko 1 was released on September 29, 1981, that is, around the time of the IBM PC.
One of the computer models of the MikroMikko series.
In 1987, the company introduced the Mobira Cityman 900 phone, which could already be carried in the hand (weight was 760 grams). It was from this phone that Mikhail Gorbachev called the Minister of Communications in Moscow while in Finland. After this picture, many called the phone "Hump".
Check out the size of the Mobira phone.
The talk timer on most Nokia phones turned on when you made a call, not when you started a conversation. Although smartphones with the S60 platform read the time as standard - when the interlocutor picked up the phone.
In 1988, Nokian Renkaat was spun off from the company, which since 1967 has been its "rubber" division. Since then, Nokian Renkaat has nothing to do with Nokia.
In 1989, a joint venture with MGTS "AMT" was created, which was engaged in mobile communications, paging and maintenance of automatic telephone exchanges in Moscow. Subsequently, Nokia's share was sold to MGTS.
In 1991, the first paid call was made on a GSM cell phone. By the way, the network itself was built on equipment manufactured by Nokia. The Prime Minister of Finland Harri Holkeri called from Helsinki.
The same call.
The frenzied global popularity of the Finnish brand in the world led to a major logistics crisis in the mid-1990s. The devices simply did not have time to ship, delivery times were moving - all this harmed the company's reputation. The timely replacement of the entire logistics infrastructure saved from failure.
Standard ringtones included "The Village", "Stones" and "Close My Eyes". These are the songs of the American indie rock band Plain Jane Automobile, which became popular thanks to Nokia.
The universally recognizable ringtone is based on the old melody of the guitar work Gran Vals, written in 1902 by the Spanish musician Francisco Tarrega.
It appeared in 1994 in the Nokia 2100 series of phones, but received its name, "Nokia tune", only in 1998, when it became associated specifically with the phones of the Finnish brand.
The standard sound of Nokia phones (SMS message sound), which usually seems to the user as an unremarkable sound signal, is in fact a full-fledged message. Only transmitted using Morse code. Thus, the signal is nothing more than the abbreviation Short Message Service, written using the above cipher.
The melody "Ascending" also has a message encrypted. It's still the same company slogan: "Connecting people".
By 1998, with a focus on telecommunications and an early investment in GSM, Nokia had become the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. The trend continued until 2007.
November 2007 Forbes calls Nokia the king of cell phones
In 2009, Nokia won a lawsuit with Apple for infringement of 10 patents, the developments of which were used in the first generation iPhone. In the end, Apple paid compensation to Nokia, and, judging by the recent patent agreement, still makes large contributions.
Nokia 3310 has become one of the most successful models in the history of Nokia. Over the past 17 years, more than 126 million copies have been sold.
All production capacities of the mobile sector are concentrated exclusively in Asian countries. The last mobile phone rolled off the Finnish assembly line in 2012. Now all AA brands manufacture their products with the help of a workforce from Asia.
On September 3, 2013, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Nokia's mobile phone division and all related patents. The purchase price was extremely low for a corporation of this level - Nokia's business was valued at $ 5 billion, and patents cost another $ 2.18 billion.
The last attempt was in 2014, despite the sale of the mobile division. Then the company introduced the Nokia N1 tablet.
Nokia N1 tablet.
After moving under the wing of Microsoft, the company left the radar of the mass user. But as it turned out just for a while.
Today we will talk about the iconic transnational company Nokia. Nokia is one of the few companies that has changed direction more than once and, having huge ups and equally huge downs, continued its activities. Today the company is known to many thanks to the production of mobile phones, communicators, Nokia Here mapping service.
So, Nokia was founded in 1865 engineer Frederik Idestam and Leopold Mechelin in Finland.
Initially, the company was engaged in the production of wood pulp near the Nokia River. This time is known for rapid industrial growth, the need for cellulose products grew day by day. The company began to actively develop and attract more and more workforce. As a result, the export of paper products was established far beyond the borders of Finland: Russia, England, France.
And already in 1871 Nokia Corporation was founded. The company confidently conquered the markets of Denmark, Germany, Russia, England, Poland and France. The co-founder of the company, Leopold Mechelin, proposed expanding to include the production of electricity and cables, but this idea was not liked by its founder, Idestam, who left the company in 1896. Mechelin managed to promote his idea to the shareholders, and by 1902, one of the activities of the company was the production of electricity. Also, by the middle of the 19th century, the technology of vulcanization was mastered, which made it possible to use rubber in various spheres of life. In Finland, rubber was produced by the Finnish Rubber Works (FRW). When the management of this company decided to move production, they chose the land next to Nokia, because. could buy electricity from them at low prices.
The rapid development of industry meant the need for the production of cables for power transmission, telegraph and telephone networks. As a result Finnish Cable Works was founded in 1912.
In 1920, the Nokia Corporation, the Finnish Rubber Works and the Finnish Cable Works formed a coalition agreement to form the Nokia Group. It turned out that three different companies used the same name - Nokia. Such an “alliance” played into the hands of all three firms, because together they formed an almost closed chain of energy production and transmission (by the 1920s, Nokia was engaged in the production of power plants). It was this diversification that helped to overcome the difficult situation of the post-war crisis that roamed around the world.
The company is engaged in various production, creating at some time paper products, car and bicycle tires, shoes, various cables, televisions and other household appliances, personal computers, electric generators, robotics, capacitors, military communications and equipment (such as the Sanomalaite M / 90 cipher text communicator and gas mask M61 for the Finnish army), plastic, aluminum and chemicals.
In 1966, three enterprises began and in 1967 were finally formalized - Nokia, FRW and FRC. Oy Nokia Ab was an industrial, worked in four main areas: the timber industry, the production of rubber, cables and electronic equipment. The old lines, especially cables, continued to make Nokia profitable. Some Finnish observers believe that the control system was taken from a cable factory; and brought the rubber industry. And the electronics division helped revive Nokia's competitiveness in a new phase of the company's development.
Together with Salora, Nokia begins work on high-frequency broadcasting technologies. As a result, the ARP communication standard was isolated. In the mid-1970s, one of Nokia's first telecommunications products, the DX200 switch for automatic telephone exchanges, was released.
In 1984, after buying back part of the shares of the joint company Mobira, Nokia releases one of the first portable phones - Mobira Talkman. The device consisted of two parts: a transmitter and a speaking tube, and its weight was almost 5 kilograms.
And in 1987, thanks to technological progress, the company presents Nokia Cityman, a mobile phone with a single block of hardware hardware. By the way, the weight has dropped to 750 grams)))
In 1992, the company launched the world's first GSM phone - Nokia 1011.
In the same year, the famous Connecting People slogan was used for the first time.
At the moment, Nokia is the largest company in Finland by capitalization - 30 billion dollars. The company is the largest employer in Finland, with a total staff of about 100,000 people. Since September 2010, the post of CEO has been occupied by Stephen Elop, during which the transition of smartphones to Windows Phone and the further sale of the mobile division took place. And the market share of smartphones fell from 29% in 2010 to 3% in 2012. He also cut his staff by 20,000 people and received more than $25 million after the approval of the deal with Microsoft and later took a job in this company.
It is worth noting that the decline in popularity was outlined even before the arrival of Elop to the position of CEO.
It turns out that his actions only worsened the already poor state of the company, because. Samsung, LG and Apple began to enter the market.
As for the financial side, the company reported to the public for its own activities in the fourth quarter of last year and for 2013 as a whole. As expected, the numbers are quite depressing. Thus, the operating in the fourth quarter fell by 17% and amounted to €274 million, and revenue - by 21% (€3.476 billion). At the same time, it amounted to €12.709 million, which is also 17% lower than in 2012. As we remember, the mobile unit was sold and listed as "operations". It is reported that sales of Lumia for a three-month period decreased from 8.8 million units to 8.2 million, and in total since its inception (2011), Nokia has sold about 44 million Windows Phone devices (which is approximately as much as Apple sold in 2011). the same quarter or the sum of the Samsung Galaxy S4 since March 2013).
However, the other three “pillars” on which Nokia is based continue to make a profit. In particular, Nokia Solutions and Networks reports revenue of €3.105 billion (€2.592 billion in the third quarter) and operating income of €243 million (€166 million). Mapping service HERE generated 20% higher revenue for finances than in the third quarter, and reached €254 on an operating income of €18 million. As for Advanced Technologies (research division) earned €310 million in a year, which is slightly lower than a year earlier , but Nokia managed to gain a strategic advantage by extending cooperation with Samsung regarding the use of "Finnish" patents, for which royalties began on January 1, 2014. Well, Nokia has drawn a line under its phone business. In a year, new financial results will tell how justified such a decision of the board will be, which caused a huge public outcry in Finland and beyond.
And in November 2014, the announcement of the Nokia N1 tablet took place. It is worth noting that the company has licensed the use of the brand to the Chinese company Foxconn. Those. from Nokia there is only a brand and proprietary Z Launcher, built on the Android 5 platform. The tablet turned out to be successful, of course, the design is rather suspiciously similar to the iPad Mini, but that's where all the similarities end. Tablet got a gorgeous 2048 × 1536 display, a 64-bit Intel Atom processor and a starting price tag of $ 250, which is the best price / quality ratio in this segment. The release of the Tablet is scheduled for 2015.
Nokia also conducts research in the study of graphene (an allotropic modification of carbon). The material itself is 300 times stronger than steel, it is almost transparent, has tensile strength and much more. Nokia has received $1.35 billion from the European Union (UE) to research and develop this ultra-strong material over the next ten years. And there are already results. The Nokia Battery 300 is a carbon battery that generates protons in contact with water and recharges itself. 30% humidity is enough to charge the battery.
We can also mention the progress in the development of flexible (rather than curved) displays, which use mechanical deformation for various kinds of functions. So far, these are raw prototypes, but there is no doubt that they will find their way into the near future.
In conclusion, I would like to say that given that Nokia has changed its focus every time, depending on the wishes of the market (and did it quite successfully), I would not be surprised at the company's success in the field of graphene and other mobile solutions.
Thank you for your attention))
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Until recently, Nokia smartphones were among the market leaders. Nowadays, gadgets from other companies have supplanted them, but this brand's simple dialer phones remain popular. Who is the manufacturing country of Nokia and why is there such a trend today?
Nokia's history dates back to 1865, when mining engineer Fredrik Idestam founded a wood pulp mill in Tampere, southwestern Finland (which was part of the Russian Empire). In 1868, he built a second mill near the city of Nokia, which had the best hydropower resources. In 1871, Idestam, with the help of a close friend and statesman Leo Mechelin, renamed and turned his firm into a joint-stock company, thus creating Nokia Ab.
By the end of the 19th century, Mechelin was looking to expand its electricity business. In 1896 he became chairman of the company (in this position from 1898 to 1914) and added electricity generation to the core business.
In the late 1910s, shortly after World War I, Nokia was nearing bankruptcy. As a result, it was bought out by Suomen Gummitehdas, which had a large rubber factory located nearby. This was an important event in the history of the corporation. Even today you can hear the question of which country is the manufacturer of Nokia tires. In 1922, the same company acquired the Suomen Kaapelitehdas plant, which produced telephone, telegraph and electrical cables, as well as installing such communications.
At that time, three companies - Nokia Ab, Suomen Gummitehdas, Suomen Kaapelitehdas - did not officially merge, because the law did not allow this, but the management continued to create a successful conglomerate. The country of origin of Nokia did not actually change, and in 1967 all three firms were officially merged into a new industrial conglomerate Nokia Corporation.
The new company was involved in many industries, producing at various times paper products, car and bicycle tires, shoes (including rubber boots), cables, televisions and other consumer electronics, personal computers, power generation machines, robotics, and more. Each division had its own director who reported to the first president of Nokia Corporation, Bjorn Westerlund. He was also responsible for establishing the company's first electronics department in 1960, starting a rapid development in the field of telecommunications.
Finland has gradually become known as the manufacturing country of the Nokia phone. The electronics section of the cable department was founded in 1960, and the production of the first electronic devices began in 1962. The first product was a pulse analyzer designed for use in nuclear power plants. After 1967, this department was registered as a special division, where the production of telecommunications equipment was started.
In the 1970s, Nokia became more active in the industry with the launch of the Nokia DX 200, a digital exchange for telephone exchanges. It became the basis for the functioning of network equipment. Its architecture allowed further development of various switching products. In 1984, the development of data exchange for the Nordic Mobile Telephony network was started.
In the 1970s, the company was divided into government and commercial organizations. In 1987, the state sold its shares to Nokia, and in 1992 the company's name was changed to Nokia Telecommunications. From that moment on, Finland went down in history as the manufacturing country of the Nokia phone.
The technologies that preceded today's cellular mobile telephony systems were the various standards for pre-cellular mobile radiotelephony. Nokia has been producing commercial and some military mobile radio technology since the 1960s.
In 1964, Nokia developed the VHF radio at the same time as Salora Oy. In 1966, Nokia and Salora began developing the ARP (Automotive Mobile Radiotelephone System) standard and the first commercial public mobile phone network in Finland. So the Nokia company (manufacturing country - Finland) became the pioneer of a new generation of communications.
In 1979, the merger between Nokia and Salora created Mobira Oy, which began developing mobile phones for the NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony) 1G network standard. This is how Finland got the world's first fully automatic cellular telephone system, which went online in 1981. In 1982, Mobira introduced its first car phone, the NMT-450.
Nokia bought all the shares of Salora Oy in 1984 and changed the name of the telecommunications business to Nokia-Mobira Oy. Mobira Talkman, released in 1984, was one of the world's first mobile phones.
In 1987, Nokia introduced its first mobile phone, the Mobira Cityman 900, designed for NMT-900 networks (which, compared to the NMT-450, offered better signal but shorter range). This device weighed only 800 grams with the battery and had a price of 24,000 Finnish marks (approximately 7,300 euros in today's equivalent). Despite the high price, the first phones were almost snatched from the hands of sellers. Initially, the mobile phone was a VIP product and a status symbol. At that time, the question of which country was the manufacturer of Nokia did not even arise. Everything was produced only in Finland.
Then Nokia was a key developer of the GSM (2G) system, which could carry data as well as voice traffic. NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephony) is the world's first mobile telephony standard for international roaming, which was introduced by the Nokia manufacturing country in 1987 as a new European standard in this area.
Nokia then handed over its first GSM network to the Finnish operator Radiolinja in 1989. The world's first commercial GSM call was made on July 1, 1991 in Helsinki, via a network supplied by Nokia, by the then Prime Minister of Finland, Harri Holkeri.
In 1992, the first GSM phone, the Nokia 1011, was launched on the market. This model number refers to the release date, November 10th. The Nokia 1011 hasn't used the company's signature ringtone yet. Nokia's signature ringtone was introduced as a ringing variant in 1994 with the Nokia 2100.
High-quality GSM voice calls, easy international roaming, and support for services such as text messaging (SMS) laid the foundation for a worldwide boom in mobile phone usage. GSM began to dominate mobile telephony in the 1990s, and by mid-2008 there were about three billion subscribers, with over 700 mobile operators in 218 countries and territories.
The company released the Nokia 3310 in 2000. This phone became one of the most popular devices at that time. Only Finland was the manufacturing country of Nokia-3310.
This record was soon broken by the Nokia 1100, released in 2003. In total, over 200 million copies have been sold. This model is the best-selling mobile phone in the world in the entire history of the existence of such devices. The appearance of this phone contributed to the growth of the company's popularity in emerging markets.
Nokia developers were among the first to recognize the possibility of combining a game console and a mobile phone by implementing this in the N-Gage. It was a phone for gamers that cost twice as much as a standard device.
The device ran Series 40, a platform used primarily for Java applications. At the time, it was the world's most popular mobile phone software. Nokia then acquired Smarterphone, a company that makes the Smarterphone OS for low-cost phones, and merged that operating system with the Series 40 to create the Asha platform.
Asha 501 was the first phone to run the new OS. Series 40 devices were discontinued at the end of 2014.
Symbian was Nokia's main operating system for smartphones until 2011. Popular devices based on this platform include the following:
Also released Nokia 808 PureView, which was presented with a record 41-megapixel camera.
Nokia's first Linux devices were the Nokia and N900 internet tablets, which ran Debian-based Maemo. The Maemo project later teamed up with Intel Moblin to create MeeGo. The N9 smartphone was released before the further development of devices changed in favor of Windows Phone.
The Nokia X family of Android-powered devices was Nokia's last standalone entry into the market on a Linux-based platform. Subsequently, Nokia 8 was released, the manufacturing country of which remained the same, but it was a joint project of several companies. Then phones appeared in this line under serial numbers 6, 5, 3 and so on.
As can be seen from the above, the country of origin of Nokia is Finland, from the first day of the existence of production. However, the company developed further, opening its branches around the world.
So, on May 5, 2000, Nokia opened its mobile phone factory in Hungary. In April 2003, problems arose related to the separation of network equipment. This forced the corporation to resort to various optimization methods, including layoffs and organizational restructuring. Such measures significantly damaged Nokia's reputation in Finland.
In March 2007, a new manufacturing country for Nokia appeared - the company signed a memorandum with the Cluj County Council in Romania to open a factory near the city of Juku. The relocation of production from Germany to a country with low wages caused a great uproar. Around the same time, Nokia moved some of its headquarters to the US. In 2008, the company entered the mobile phone market in Japan.
In February 2012, the company announced 4,000 layoffs due to the relocation of production from Europe and Mexico to Asia. This is how additional countries producing Nokia smartphones appeared.
Apple's iPhone, originally released in 2007, initially felt keen competition from popular Nokia smartphones, especially the N95. Symbian OS held a dominant (62.5%) market share.
However, with the release of the iPhone 3G in 2008, Apple's market share doubled by the end of the year, and iPhone OS (now known as iOS) outpaced Windows Mobile. Despite the fact that Nokia retained 40.8% of the market, the popularity of devices has declined markedly.
The N96, released in late 2008, was much less successful, and the 5800 XpressMusic was considered the iPhone 3G's main competitor. However, the success of the business-oriented Nokia E71 was not enough to stem the decline in market share. On June 24, 2008, Nokia bought the Symbian operating system and opened the source code a year later.
In early 2009, Nokia released the N97, a touchscreen device with a social media-focused landscape QWERTY keyboard. It was a commercial success despite mixed reviews. The N97's main competitor was the iPhone 3GS. 2009 also saw the release of several devices that received a positive response (including the Nokia E52). However, Symbian's market share declined from 52.4% in the fourth quarter of 2008 to 46.1% in 2009. Thus, the RIM platform (later Blackberry) increased its market share during this period from 16.6% to 19.9%, and Apple - from 8.2% to 14.4%. The Android niche grew at the same time to 3.9%.
In 2010, competitive pressure on Nokia increased dramatically as Android and iOS continued to evolve. Other Symbian device makers, including Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson, began releasing Android-based gadgets, and by mid-2010 Nokia was the only OEM outside of Japan. The company replaced the S60 with Symbian^3, but still didn't become popular.
By the fourth quarter of 2010, Symbian's market share had dropped to 32%, while Android's niche had grown to 30%. Despite these losses, production remained profitable, with smartphone sales increasing quarterly throughout 2010. Many developing countries in Asia remained the producing countries of Nokia.
In February 2010, Nokia and Intel announced MeeGo, merging their Linux-based Maemo and Moblin projects. The joint activity was aimed at creating a single mobile operating system for a wide range of devices, including tablets and smartphones. In particular, Nokia planned to use MeeGo as a successor to Symbian on their future phones. However, only the Nokia N9 was released.
In February 2011, representatives from Nokia and Microsoft jointly announced a major business partnership between the two companies. Its essence was to use Windows Phone as the main platform for Nokia smartphones, replacing Symbian and MeeGo. The collaboration also included using Bing as a search engine on Nokia devices, as well as integrating Nokia Maps into Microsoft's own mapping services.
The company announced that in 2011 only one MeeGo device will be released. On October 26, 2011, Nokia introduced its first Windows Phone 7 devices, the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 line. After this announcement, the company's share price fell by about 14%. Sales of Nokia smartphones, which had previously increased, collapsed.
From the beginning of 2011 to 2013, Nokia's rating in sales of devices fell from first to tenth place. In this regard, the corporation reported a loss of 368 million euros for the second quarter of 2011, while in the same period in 2010 it made a profit of 227 million euros.
In September 2011, Nokia announced that it would cut another 3,500 jobs worldwide, including the closure of its factory in Romania.
Since Nokia was the largest manufacturer of mobile phones and smartphones in the world, it was assumed that the use of Windows Phone would help regain its former influence. However, the company could not compete with the rapidly developing Apple. In 2012, there were a number of layoffs and reductions, and there were much fewer countries producing Nokia. In addition, the company closed production and research sites in Finland, Germany and Canada due to ongoing losses, and the share price fell to its lowest level since 1996.
Nokia's CEO acknowledged that the company's inability to anticipate the rapid changes in the mobile phone industry was one of the main reasons for the problems. In May 2013, Nokia released the Asha platform for low-cost smartphones. The same month, the company announced its partnership with the world's largest cellular carrier China Mobile, resulting in the Lumia 920 and Lumia 920T, a Chinese-exclusive variant.
Subsequently, Microsoft acquired the Asha, X and Lumia brands, but received only a limited license for the Nokia brand (until December 2015). Subsequently, smartphones of this line were released under the Microsoft brand. So, the United States became the manufacturing country of Nokia Lumiya.
On November 17, 2014, Nokia representatives made a statement that the company plans to re-enter the consumer electronics business by licensing its own hardware designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers. The next day, Nokia introduced the N1 tablet, based on Foxconn's Android, as its first product since being sold to Microsoft.
On April 14, 2015, the corporation confirmed that it was in talks with the French company Alcatel-Lucent regarding a possible merger. The next day, Nokia officially announced that it had agreed to buy Alcatel-Lucent for 15.6 billion euros. The acquisition was aimed at creating a stronger competitor for Ericsson and Huawei, which the combined companies surpassed in terms of total revenue in 2014.
Endorsing the initiative, the Nokia CEO said the merger will provide greater opportunities for the upcoming development of 5G. The merger with Alcatel was formalized on January 14, 2016.
The country of origin of the devices of this brand may be located in Asia at the present time. At the same time, in the course of numerous reorganizations, production returned to Finland.
On May 18, 2016, it was reported that Microsoft had sold the Nokia brand division owned by FIH Mobile to Foxconn and the new HMD company in Finland. It is expected that they will work together to create Nokia devices. Nokia will also provide brand and patent licensing to HMD and take a seat on the company's board of directors.
In January 2017, Nokia 6 was released - the first jointly developed Android smartphone. The Nokia 6 was produced in Finland. Soon there were more phones labeled as 5, 3 and 6 art. The production of these latest models is based there, and the country of origin of Nokia 5 is obvious.
