Nokia Will Reenter the Mobile Phone Market If...

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 14 Jul 2015

There have been reports that Nokia plans to reenter the mobile phone market in 2016. The company responded to these reports and said that…it might do just that if the right hardware partner is found.

“We will look for the right partner who can take on the heavy lifting and work closely with us to deliver a great product. As we agreed with Microsoft, the soonest that could happen is Q4 2016 -- so it’s safe to say Nokia won’t be back (at least in phone form...) before then,” explained Robert Morlino, spokesman for Nokia Technologies.

Nowadays, the big players in the mobile phone market are Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft, since it acquired Nokia Devices and Services last year for $7 billion. There was a time though when the biggest name in the mobile market was Nokia.

For 14 years, the Finnish company was the biggest cell phone maker in the world – but then it all came crashing down. The Nokia brand, a household name once, is now a thing of the past. Lumia phones don’t even feature it anymore.

There have been rumors on the web and reports in the media that Nokia might make a comeback, that it might return to the mobile phone market. Robert Morlino, spokesman for Nokia Technologies, responded to those rumors, stating that “it’s complicated.”

Nokia will return to the mobile phone market through a brand-licensing model, like it did with the Nokia N1 tablet. I remind you that the Android-powered N1 is designed by Nokia, uses Nokia technology, and features Nokia’s logo – but it’s manufactured, marketed, and distributed by Foxconn, under license.

As I was saying, Nokia will return to the mobile phone market through a brand-licensing model – but only if it finds the right hardware partner.

“The right path back to mobile phones for Nokia is through a brand-licensing model. That means identifying a partner that can be responsible for all of the manufacturing, sales, marketing and customer support for a product,” said Robert Morlino.

“If and when we find a world-class partner who can take on those responsibilities, we would work closely with them to guide the design and technology differentiation, as we did with the Nokia N1 Android tablet. That’s the only way the bar would be met for a mobile device we’d be proud to have bear the Nokia brand, and that people will love to buy,” Morlino added.



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