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Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational
telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
,
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...
, and
consumer electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...
corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in
Espoo Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...
,
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, in the greater
Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
metropolitan area, but the company's actual roots are in the
Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
region of
Pirkanmaa Pirkanmaa (; sv, Birkaland; la, Birkaria, link=no), also known as ''Tampere Region'' in government documents, is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Satakunta, South Ostrobothnia, Central Finland, Päijät-Häme, Kanta-Häme an ...
.HS: Nokian juuret ovat Tammerkosken rannalla
(in Finnish)
In 2020, Nokia employed approximately 92,000 people across over 100 countries, did business in more than 130 countries, and reported annual revenues of around €23 billion. Nokia is a
public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company whose shares may be fre ...
listed on the
Helsinki Stock Exchange The Nasdaq Helsinki, formerly known as the Helsinki Stock Exchange ( fi, Helsingin Pörssi, sv, Helsingforsbörsen), is a stock exchange located in Helsinki, Finland. Since 3 September 2003, it has been part of Nasdaq Nordic (previously called ...
and
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...
. It is the world's 415th-largest company measured by 2016 revenues according to the ''
Fortune Global 500 The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine. Methodology Until 1989, it listed onl ...
,'' having peaked at 85th place in 2009. It is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. The company has operated in various industries over the past 150 years. It was founded as a pulp mill and had long been associated with
rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...
and cables, but since the 1990s has focused on large-scale
telecommunications infrastructure Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
, technology development, and licensing. Nokia made significant contributions to the mobile telephony industry, assisting in the development of the
GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...
, 3G, and LTE standards. For a decade beginning in 1998, Nokia was the largest worldwide vendor of
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...
s and
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s. In the later 2000s, however, Nokia suffered from a series of poor management decisions, and soon saw its share of the mobile phone market drop sharply. After a partnership with
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
and Nokia's subsequent market struggles, in 2014 Microsoft bought Nokia's mobile phone business, incorporating it as
Microsoft Mobile Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft i ...
. After the sale, Nokia began to focus more on its telecommunications infrastructure business and on Internet of things technologies, marked by the divestiture of its
Here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here Television * Here TV (form ...
mapping division and the acquisition of
Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a s ...
, including its
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
research organization. The company then also experimented with
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
and
digital health Digital health is a discipline that includes digital care programs, technologies with health, healthcare, living, and society to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery and to make medicine more personalized and precise. It uses informat ...
, the latter through the purchase of
Withings Withings (pronounced "WITH-things") is a French consumer electronics company headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. It also has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and Hong Kong, and distributes its products worldwide. Withings is kno ...
. The Nokia brand returned to the mobile and smartphone market in 2016 through a licensing arrangement with
HMD Global HMD Global Oy, branded as HMD and Nokia Mobile, is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer. The company is made up of the mobile phone business that Nokia sold to Microsoft in 2014, then bought back in 2016. HMD began marketing Nokia-branded smar ...
. Nokia continues to be a major
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
licensor for most large mobile phone vendors. As of 2018, Nokia is the world's third-largest network equipment manufacturer. The company was viewed with national pride by
Finns Finns or Finnish people ( fi, suomalaiset, ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these ...
, as its mobile phone business made it by far the largest worldwide company and brand from Finland. At its peak in 2000, during the telecoms bubble, Nokia accounted for 4% of the country's
GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
, 21% of total exports, and 70% of the
Helsinki Stock Exchange The Nasdaq Helsinki, formerly known as the Helsinki Stock Exchange ( fi, Helsingin Pörssi, sv, Helsingforsbörsen), is a stock exchange located in Helsinki, Finland. Since 3 September 2003, it has been part of Nasdaq Nordic (previously called ...
market capital.


History


1865–1967

Nokia's history dates from 1865, when Finnish-Swede
mining engineer Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...
Fredrik Idestam Knut Fredrik Idestam (28 October 1838, Tyrväntö, Grand Duchy of Finland – 8 April 1916, Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland) was a Finnish mining engineer and businessman, best known as a founder of Nokia. In May 1865, Idestam obtained a permit ...
established a pulp mill on the shores of the
Tammerkoski Tammerkoski is a channel of rapids in Tampere, Finland. The city of Tampere is located between two lakes, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. The difference in altitude between these two is and the water flows from Näsijärvi to Pyhäjärvi through ...
rapids near the town of
Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
, Finland (then in the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
). A second pulp mill was opened in 1868 near the neighboring town of Nokia, where there were better
hydropower Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of a w ...
resources. In 1871, Idestam, together with a friend
Leo Mechelin Leopold (Leo) Henrik Stanislaus Mechelin (24 November 1839 in Hamina, Finland – 26 January 1914 in Helsinki, Finland) was a Finnish politician, professor, liberal reformer and businessman. A leading defender of the autonomy of the Grand Duch ...
, formed a shared company and called it ''Nokia Ab'' (in
Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, ''Nokia Company'' being the English equivalent), after the site of the second pulp mill. Idestam retired in 1896, making Mechelin the company's chairman; he expanded into
electricity generation Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its delivery ( transmission, distribution, etc.) to end users or its s ...
by 1902, which Idestam had opposed. In 1904 Suomen Gummitehdas (''Finnish Rubber Works''), a
rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...
business founded by
Eduard Polón Ulrik Wilhelm Eduard Polón (16 June 1861 – 30 September 1930) was a Finnish business leader and a political patriot during the country's years of oppression. Under his leadership, a rubber industry was launched in the country. He was the found ...
, established a factory near the town of Nokia and used its name. In 1922, in a now independent Finland, Nokia Ab entered into a partnership with Finnish Rubber Works and
Kaapelitehdas Kaapelitehdas ( Finnish for "the Cable Factory", also called simply Kaapeli, sv, Kabelfabriken) is a famous building in Salmisaari, Helsinki, near the Lauttasaari bridge. It was redeveloped from its industrial use into a cultural centre which ...
(''the Cable Factory''), all now jointly under the leadership of Polón. The rubber company grew rapidly when it moved to the Nokia region in the 1930s to take advantage of the electricity supply, and the cable company soon did too. Nokia at the time also made
respirator A respirator is a device designed to protect the wearer from inhaling hazardous atmospheres including fumes, vapours, gases and particulate matter such as dusts and airborne pathogens such as viruses. There are two main categories of respi ...
s for both civilian and military use, from the 1930s well into the early 1990s.


1967–1990

In 1967, the three companies – Nokia, Kaapelitehdas, and Finnish Rubber Works – merged to create a new Nokia Corporation, restructured into four major businesses: forestry, cable, rubber, and electronics. In the early 1970s, it entered the networking and radio industries. Nokia started making military equipment for Finland's defence forces (''Puolustusvoimat''), such as the Sanomalaite M/90 communicator in 1983, and the M61 gas mask first developed in the 1960s. Nokia was now also making
professional mobile radio Professional mobile radio (also known as private mobile radio (PMR) in the UK) are person-to-person two-way radio voice communications systems which use portable, mobile, base station, and dispatch console radios. PMR radio systems are based on ...
s,
telephone switch telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syste ...
es,
capacitor A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of ...
s and
chemicals A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wit ...
. After Finland's trade agreement with the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
in the 1960s, Nokia expanded into the Soviet market. It soon widened trade, ranging from automatic telephone exchanges to
robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrate ...
among others; by the late 1970s, the Soviet Union became a major market for Nokia, yielding high profits. Nokia also co-operated on scientific technology with the Soviet Union. The U.S. government became increasingly suspicious of that co-operation after the end of the Cold War
détente Détente (, French: "relaxation") is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce ...
in the early 1980s. Nokia imported many US-made components and used them in products for the Soviets, and according to U.S. Deputy Minister of Defence,
Richard Perle Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941) is an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to ...
, Nokia had a secret co-operation with
The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a meton ...
that allowed the U.S. to keep track of technological developments in the Soviet Union through trading with Nokia. This was a demonstration of Finland trading with both sides, as it was neutral during the Cold War. In 1977,
Kari Kairamo Kari Antero Oswald Kairamo, titled '' Vuorineuvos'' (31 December 1932, in Helsinki in Finland – 11 December 1988, in Espoo, Finland), was a Chairman and CEO of Nokia Corporation and a significant and popular person in the industry, who was als ...
became CEO and transformed the company's businesses. By this time, Finland was becoming what has been called "Nordic Japan". Under his leadership, Nokia acquired many companies including television maker Salora in 1984, followed by Swedish electronics and computer maker
Luxor AB Luxor was a Swedish home electronics and computer manufacturer located in Motala, established in 1923 and acquired by Nokia in 1985. The brand name is now owned by Turkish company Vestel and is used for televisions sold in the Swedish market. ...
in 1985, and French television maker Oceanic in 1987. This made Nokia the third-largest television manufacturer of Europe (behind
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
and Thomson). The existing brands continued to be used until the end of the television business in 1996. In 1987, Nokia acquired Schaub-Lorenz, the consumer operations of Germany's Standard Elektrik Lorenz (SEL), which included its "Schaub-Lorenz" and "Graetz" brands. It was originally part of American conglomerate International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), and after the acquisition products were sold under the "ITT Nokia" brand, despite SEL's sale to Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE), the predecessor of
Alcatel Alcatel may refer to: * Alcatel, a former French telecommunications equipment company, which became Alcatel-Lucent and is now part of Nokia * Alcatel Mobile, a brand of mobile phones, tablets and wearables, formerly a joint venture between Alcatel ...
, in 1986. On 1 April 1988, Nokia bought the Information Systems division of
Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informa ...
, which had originated as the
Datasaab Datasaab was the computer division of, and later a separate company spun off from, aircraft manufacturer Saab in Linköping, Sweden. Its history dates back to December 1954, when Saab got a license to build its own copy of BESK, an early Swedish c ...
computer division of Swedish aircraft and car manufacturer
Saab Saab or SAAB may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Saab Group, a Swedish aerospace and defence company, formerly known as SAAB, and later as Saab AB ** Datasaab, a former computer company, started as spin off from Saab AB * Saab Automobile, a fo ...
. Ericsson Information Systems made Alfaskop terminals,
typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s, minicomputers and Ericsson-branded IBM compatible PCs. The merger with Nokia's Information Systems division—which since 1981 had a line of personal computers called
MikroMikko MikroMikko was a Finnish line of microcomputers released by Nokia Corporation's computer division Nokia Data from 1981 through 1987. MikroMikko was Nokia Data's attempt to enter the business computer market. They were especially designed for good ...
—resulted in the name Nokia Data. Nokia also acquired Mobira, a mobile telephony company, which was the foundation of its future mobile phone business. In 1981, Mobira launched the
Nordic Mobile Telephone NMT (''Nordic Mobile Telephony'') is an automatic cellular phone system specified by Nordic telecommunications administrations ( PTTs) and opened for service on 1 October 1981. NMT is based on analogue technology (first generation or 1G) and ...
(NMT) service, the world's first international cellular network and the first to allow international roaming. In 1982, Mobira launched the Mobira Senator car phone, Nokia's first mobile phone. At that time, the company had no interest in producing mobile phones, which the executive board regarded as akin to
James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
's gadgets: improbably futuristic and niche devices. After all these acquisitions, Nokia's revenue base became US$2.7 billion. CEO Kairamo committed suicide on 11 December 1988. In 1987,
Kaapelitehdas Kaapelitehdas ( Finnish for "the Cable Factory", also called simply Kaapeli, sv, Kabelfabriken) is a famous building in Salmisaari, Helsinki, near the Lauttasaari bridge. It was redeveloped from its industrial use into a cultural centre which ...
discontinued production of cables at its
Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
factory after 44 years, effectively shutting down the sub-company. File:Mobira 800-NDB.JPG, Mobira 800-NDB non-directional beacon located in the Finnish Air Force signals museum File:Lasersuunnin merivoimien vuosipäivä 2013 Kotka 3.JPG, Nokia MAC 8532 laser rangefinder previously used by Finnish coastal artillery File:Patteriston komentopaikka Hämeenlinna 2.JPG, Hämeenlinna artillery museum display containing fire control officer with Nokia artillery calculator in Finnish artillery battalion command post File:MikroMikko 4 TT m216 Tekniikan museo 02.jpg, Late 1980s MikroMikko 4 TT m216 desktop computer in the Museum of Technology, Helsinki, Finland File:Itt-nokia television and vhs-video.jpeg, ITT Nokia television with an ITT Nokia VCR (ITT/SEL) File:Mobira kaukohakulaite.png, A 1986 Mobira pager


1990–2010

Following Simo Vuorilehto's appointment as CEO, a major restructuring was planned. With 11 groups within the company, Vuorilehto divested industrial units he deemed as un-strategic. Nokian Tyres (''Nokian Renkaat''), a tyre producer originally formed as a division of Finnish Rubber Works in 1932, split away from Nokia Corporation in 1988. Two years later, in 1990, Finnish Rubber Works followed suit. In 1991 Nokia sold its computer division, Nokia Data, to UK-based International Computers Limited (ICL), the precursor of Fujitsu Siemens. Investors thought of this as financial trouble and Nokia's stock price sank as a result. Finland was now also experiencing its worst recession in living memory, and the
collapse Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or telescoping objects * Collapsing user interface elements ** ...
of the Soviet Union, a major customer, made matters worse. Vuorilehto quit in January 1992 and was replaced by
Jorma Ollila Jorma Jaakko Ollila CBE (born 15 August 1950) is a Finnish businessman who was chairman of Royal Dutch Shell from 1 June 2006 to May 2015, and at Nokia Corporation chairman from 1999 to 2012 and CEO from 1992 to 2006. He has been a director of ...
, who had been the head of the mobile phone business from 1990 and advised against selling that division. Ollila decided to turn Nokia into a ' telecom-oriented' company, and he eventually got rid of divisions like the power business. This strategy proved to be very successful and the company grew rapidly in the following years. Nokia's operating profit went from negative in 1991 to $1 billion in 1995 and almost $4 billion by 1999. Nokia's first fully portable mobile phone after the Mobira Senator was the Mobira Cityman 900 in 1987. Nokia assisted in the development of the
GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...
mobile standard in the 1980s, and developed the first GSM network with Siemens, the predecessor to
Nokia Siemens Network Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
. The world's first GSM call was made by Finnish prime minister
Harri Holkeri Harri Hermanni Holkeri (; 6 January 1937 – 7 August 2011) was a Finnish statesman representing the National Coalition Party of Finland (Kokoomus / Samlingspartiet). He was the Prime Minister of Finland 1987–1991, president of the UN Gen ...
on 1 July 1991, using Nokia equipment on the 900 MHz band network built by Nokia and operated by
Radiolinja Radiolinja was a Finnish GSM operator founded on September 19, 1988. On March 27, 1991, the world's first GSM phone call was made on Radiolinja's network. The network was opened for commercial use on July 1, 1991. Radiolinja's slogan was ''So tha ...
. In November 1992, the
Nokia 1011 The Nokia 1011 (NHE-2X5, NHE-2XN) is the first mass-produced GSM phone. It was sold also as Mobira Cityman 2000. The typenumber refers to the launch date, 10 November 1992. The black handset measured 195 x 60 x 45 mm and featured a monochro ...
launched, making it the first commercially available GSM mobile phone. Salora Oy as a Nokia subsidiary ended in 1989 when the division was merged into Nokia-Mobira Oy. The brand continued to be used for televisions until 1995. On 12 June 1996, Nokia announced the sale of its
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
business to Canada/Hong Kong-based Semi-Tech Corporation. The television manufacturing plant in Germany closed down in September 1996. The sale included a factory in
Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...
, and the rights to use the Nokia, Finlux,
Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...
, Salora, Schaub-Lorenz and Oceanic brands until the end of 1999. Some of these brands were later sold to other companies. Nokia was the first to launch digital satellite receivers in the UK, announced in March 1997. In August 1997 Nokia introduced the first digital satellite receiver with
Common Interface In Digital Video Broadcasting, the Common Interface (also called DVB-CI) is a technology which allows decryption of pay TV channels. Pay TV stations want to choose which encryption method to use. The Common Interface allows TV manufacturers to ...
(CI) support. In 1998 Nokia became the chosen supplier to produce the world's first
digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...
set-top boxes by British Digital Broadcasting (BDB), which was eventually launched as
ONdigital ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television Broadcasting, broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada ...
. In October 1998, Nokia overtook
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
to become the best-selling mobile phone brand, and in December manufactured its 100 millionth mobile phone. A major reason why Nokia grew against its main competitors Motorola and
Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informa ...
was that it managed to cater to the consumer youth market and fashion-oriented consumers, most significantly with the
Nokia 5110 The Nokia 5110 is a GSM mobile phone that was introduced by Nokia on 12 April 1998. The 5110, also known as Nokia 5146 on One2One (now T-Mobile), or the nk402 on Orange in the UK, was intended for the consumer market, succeeding Nokia 3110 and ...
and 3210 handsets which featured a large range of colourful and replaceable back-covers called Xpress-on. One of the earliest fashion phones in 1992, from Swiss watchmaker
Swatch Swatch is a Swiss watchmaker founded in 1983 by Ernst Thomke, Elmar Mock, and Jacques Müller. It is a subsidiary of The Swatch Group. The Swatch product line was developed as a response to the "quartz crisis" of the 1970s and 1980s, in which ...
, was based on Nokia's 101 handset. The company would also form the
Vertu Vertu is a British-based manufacturer and retailer of luxury handmade mobile phones, established by Finnish mobile-phone manufacturer Nokia in 1998. Concept According to ''The Economist'', the concept was to market phones explicitly as fashi ...
division, creating luxury mobile handsets. Nokia claimed in April 1996 its 447Xav and 447K monitors to be the first with stereo speakers and a sub-woofer. In May 1999 Nokia introduced their first
wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office buildi ...
products. In January 2000 ViewSonic acquired Nokia Display Products, the division making
displays A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal the ...
for personal computers. On 26 April 2001 Nokia partnered with
Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...
to supply
DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...
modems and routers in Spain. In 1997, Nokia established a
joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and economic risk, risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four rea ...
with Brazilian electronics firm
Gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gr ...
where they were granted the license to manufacture variants of Nokia mobile phones locally under the Nokia and Gradient brand names. In 1998, Nokia co-founded Symbian Ltd. led by Psion to create a new operating system for PDAs and smart mobile phones as a successor of EPOC32. They released the
Nokia 9210 Communicator The Nokia 9210 Communicator is a third-generation Communicator series smartphone produced by Nokia, announced on 21 November 2000 and released in June 2001. It greatly improved on the second generation Nokia 9110 Communicator, providing a colour ...
running
Symbian OS Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...
in 2001 and later that year created the Symbian
Series 60 The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface) was a software platform for smartphones that runs on top of the Symbian operating system. It was created by Nokia based on the 'Pearl' user interface from Symbian Ltd. It was introduced at ...
platform, later introducing it with their first camera phone, the
Nokia 7650 The Nokia 7650 is a 2.5G consumer-oriented smartphone belonging to the fashion and experimental ( 7xxx) series. It was introduced in Barcelona on 19 November 2001, and was described by CEO Jorma Ollila as the company's most important launch of th ...
. Both Nokia and Symbian eventually became the largest
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
hardware and software maker respectively, and in February 2004 Nokia became the largest shareholder of Symbian Ltd. Nokia acquired the entire company in June 2008 and then formed the
Symbian Foundation The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangelis ...
as its successor. In 1998 alone, the company had sales revenue of $20 billion making $2.6 billion profit. By 2000 Nokia employed over 55,000 people, and had a market share of 30% in the mobile phone market, almost twice as large as its nearest competitor,
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
. The company was operating in 140 countries as of 1999. It was reported at the time that some people believed Nokia to be a Japanese company. Between 1996 and 2001, Nokia's turnover increased fivefold, from €6.5 billion to €31 billion. The company would then be known as a successful and innovative maker of camera phones. The
Nokia 3600/3650 The Nokia 3650, sold in North American markets as the Nokia 3600 (triband GSM 850/1800/1900 MHz), is a smartphone from Nokia announced on 6 September 2002 as the successor to the Nokia 7650. It runs Symbian OS Series 60 (version 1.2). A ver ...
was the first camera phone on sale in North America in 2003. In April 2005 Nokia partnered with German camera optics maker
Carl Zeiss AG Carl Zeiss AG (), branded as ZEISS, is a German manufacturer of optical systems and optoelectronics, founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss. Together with Ernst Abbe (joined 1866) and Otto Schott (joined 1884) he laid the f ...
. That same month Nokia introduced the
Nseries The Nokia Nseries was a high-end lineup of feature phones, smartphones, and tablets marketed by Nokia Corporation from 2005 to 2011. The Nseries devices commonly supported multiple high-speed wireless technologies at the time, such as 3G, or Wirel ...
, which would become its flagship line of smartphones for the next six years. The
Nokia N95 The Nokia N95 is a smartphone produced by Nokia as part of their Nseries line of portable devices. Announced in September 2006, it was released to the market in March 2007. The N95 ran S60 3rd Edition, on Symbian OS v9.2. It has a two-way sli ...
was introduced in September 2006 became highly successful and was also awarded as "best mobile imaging device" in Europe in 2007. Its successor the N82 featured a
xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...
flash, which helped it win the award of "best mobile imaging" device in Europe in 2008. The N93 in 2006 was known for its specialized
camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swa ...
and the twistable design that switches between clamshell and a camcorder-like position. They were also well known for the N8 with a high-resolution 12-megapixel sensor in 2010; the 808 PureView in 2012 with a 41-megapixel sensor; and the
Lumia 920 Nokia Lumia 920 is a smartphone developed by Nokia that runs the Windows Phone 8 operating system. It was announced on September 5, 2012, and was first released on November 2, 2012. It has a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait CPU and a 4.5" IP ...
flagship in 2012 which implemented advanced
PureView Nokia PureView is the branding of a combination of technologies used in cameras of Nokia-branded smartphones, and previously, in phones by Microsoft Mobile. PureView was first introduced with Nokia 808 PureView. Hardware PureView cameras have ...
technologies. Nokia was one of the pioneers of
mobile gaming A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to h ...
due to the popularity of ''
Snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...
'', which came pre-loaded on many products. In 2002, Nokia attempted to break into the handheld gaming market with the N-Gage. Nokia's head of entertainment and media, Ilkka Raiskinen, once quoted "
Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...
is for 10-year-olds", stating that N-Gage is more suited to a mature audience. However, the device was a failure, unable to challenge the dominant market leader Nintendo. Nokia attempted to revive N-Gage as a platform for their S60 smartphones, which eventually launched in 2008. In Q1 2004, Nokia's mobile phone handset market share steeply dropped to 28.9%, down from 34.6% a year earlier. However, by 2006 the company was steadily gaining again and in Q4 2007 reached its all-time high figure of 40.4%. Its smartphone market share in that quarter was 51%. Nokia was the largest vendor at the time in all regions bar North America. Nokia launched
mobile TV Mobile television is television watched on a small handheld or mobile device. It includes service delivered via mobile phone networks, received free-to-air via terrestrial television stations, or via satellite broadcast. Regular broadcast stand ...
trials in 2005 in Finland with content provided by public broadcaster
Yle Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...
. The services are based on the DVB-H standard. It could be viewed with the widescreen
Nokia 7710 The Nokia 7710 is a smartphone developed by Nokia and announced on 2 November 2004. It was the first Nokia device with a touchscreen (4 years ahead of Nokia 5800 XpressMusic), and first Nokia branded device with 2:1 aspect ratio display (14 year ...
smartphone with a special accessory enabling it to receive DVB-H signals. Nokia partnered with
Arqiva Arqiva () is a British telecommunications company which provides infrastructure, broadcast transmission and smart meter facilities in the United Kingdom. The company is headquartered at the former Independent Broadcasting Authority headquart ...
and O2 to launch trials in the UK in September 2005. In 2005, Nokia developed a
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
-based operating system called
Maemo Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...
, which shipped that year on the
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is a wireless Internet appliance from Nokia, originally announced at the LinuxWorld Summit in New York City on 25 May 2005. It is designed for wireless Internet browsing and email functions and includes software suc ...
. On 1 June 2006,
Jorma Ollila Jorma Jaakko Ollila CBE (born 15 August 1950) is a Finnish businessman who was chairman of Royal Dutch Shell from 1 June 2006 to May 2015, and at Nokia Corporation chairman from 1999 to 2012 and CEO from 1992 to 2006. He has been a director of ...
became the company's chairman and retired as CEO, replaced by Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. In August 2007, Nokia introduced Ovi, an umbrella name for the company's new Internet services which included the N-Gage platform and the
Nokia Music Store MixRadio was an online music streaming service owned by Line Corporation. The service was first introduced by Nokia in 2011 as ''Nokia Music'' for Windows Phone, serving as a successor to Nokia's previous Nokia Music Store/Comes with Music/Ovi ...
. The Ovi Store faced stiff competition against
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
's
App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...
when it was introduced in 2008. In October 2008, Nokia announced the
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is a smartphone part of the XpressMusic line, announced by Nokia on 2 October 2008 in London and started shipping in November of that year. Code-named "Tube", it was the first touchscreen-equipped S60 device by Nokia – ...
, the first device to ship with the new touch-centric S60 5th Edition, also known as Symbian^1, the first iteration of the platform since the creation of the Symbian Foundation. In November 2008 Nokia announced it would end mobile phone sales in Japan because of low market share. Nokia's global mobile phone market share peaked in 2008 at 38.6 percent. The same year, Nokia announced the acquisition of Trolltech and its Qt software development. Qt was a central part of Nokia's strategy until 2011, and it was eventually sold in 2012. Nokia briefly returned to the computer market with the Booklet 3G netbook in August 2009.


2010–2014

In late 2009 and in 2010, the music-focused Xseries and consumer-focused
Cseries The Airbus A220 is a family of five-abreast narrow-body airliners by Airbus Canada Limited Partnership. It was originally designed by Bombardier and had two years in service as the Bombardier CSeries. The program was launched on 13 July 2 ...
were introduced respectively. In April 2010 Nokia introduced its next flagship mobile device, the
Nokia N8 The Nokia N8 is a touchscreen-based smartphone developed by Nokia. Announced on 27 April 2010, the Nokia N8 was the first device to run on the Symbian^3 mobile operating system and it was the company's flagship device for the year. It was relea ...
, which would be the first to run on Symbian^3. However it was delayed for many months which tarnished the company's image, especially after the failure of its previous flagship N97 and tougher competition from
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
and the rising
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
. On 10 September 2010, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was fired as CEO and it was announced that Stephen Elop from
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
would take Nokia's CEO position, becoming the first non-Finnish director in Nokia's history. It was claimed that investors pressed Nokia's board to recruit an outsider to shake up management and break from the traditional "Nokia way". Ollila had also announced that he would step down as Nokia chairman by 2012. On 11 March 2011 Nokia announced that it had paid Elop a $6 million signing bonus as "compensation for lost income from his prior employer", on top of his $1.4 million annual salary. The old Symbian OS became completely open source in February 2010. However, in November 2010 it was announced that the
Symbian Foundation The Symbian Foundation was a non-profit organisation that stewarded the Symbian operating system for mobile phones which previously had been owned and licensed by Symbian Ltd. Symbian Foundation never directly developed the platform, but evangelis ...
was closing and that Nokia would take back control of the Symbian operating system under closed licensing. By now Nokia was the only remaining company using the platform, along with carrier NTT DoCoMo in Japan, after both
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
and
Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. ...
moved to Android. Meanwhile, in 2010 for Nokia's
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
ambitions, Nokia collaborated with
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
to form the
MeeGo MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances ...
project, after the merger of Nokia's own
Maemo Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...
and Intel's
Moblin Moblin, short for 'mobile Linux', is a discontinued open source operating system and application stack for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), netbooks, nettops and embedded devices. Built around the Intel Atom processor, all builds were designed to ...
. Nokia's Symbian platform that had been the leading smartphone platform in Europe and Asia for many years was quickly becoming outdated and difficult for developers after the advent of
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...
and Android. To counter this, Nokia planned to make their MeeGo Linux operating system, under development, the company's flagship on smartphones. Shortly after Elop's CEO tenure began, the Nokia board green-lit him the ability to change the company's mobile phones strategy, including changing operating systems. Veteran Anssi Vanjoki, head of the smartphones division, left the company around this time. His final appearance was at Nokia World 2010 when the Nokia E7 and other Symbian^3 devices were introduced. On 11 February 2011, Nokia announced a "strategic partnership" with
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
, under which it would adopt
Windows Phone 7 Windows Phone 7 is the first release of the Windows Phone mobile client operating system, released worldwide on October 21, 2010, and in the United States on November 8, 2010. It runs on the Windows CE 6.0 kernel. It received multiple large upda ...
as its primary operating system on smartphones, and integrate its services and platforms with its own, including
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
as search engine, and integration of
Nokia Maps Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
data into Bing Maps. Elop stated that Nokia chose not to use Android because of an apparent inability to "differentiate" its offerings, with critics also noting that his past ties to Microsoft may have also influenced the decision. Although the MeeGo "Harmattan"-based N9 was met with a highly positive reception in 2011, Nokia had already decided to end development on MeeGo and solely focus on its Microsoft partnership, although the CEO said that the N9's "innovations" will live on in the future, which eventually made their way on the Asha platform in 2013. After the announcement of the Microsoft partnership, Nokia's market share deteriorated; this was due to demand for Symbian dropping when consumers realized Nokia's focus and attention would be elsewhere. The company posted a large loss for the second quarter of 2011 – only their second quarterly loss in 19 years. Nokia's first Windows Phone flagship was the Lumia 800, which arrived in November 2011. Falling sales in 2011, which were not being improved significantly with the Lumia line in 2012, led to consecutive quarters of huge losses. By mid-2012 the company's stock price fell below $2. CEO Elop announced cost-cutting measures in June by shedding 10,000 employees by the end of the year and the closure of the
Salo Salo or Salò may refer to: Places Finland *Salo, Finland, a town in Western Finland ** Salo sub-region, a subdivision of Finland Proper and one of the Sub-regions of Finland since 2009 *An old name of Saloinen, a former municipality in Ostrobot ...
manufacturing plant. The Finnish prime minister also announced that the government wouldn't subsidize the company from an emergency state fund. Around this time Nokia started a new project codenamed "
Meltemi The etesians ( or ; grc, ἐτησίαι, etēsiai, periodic winds; sometimes found in the Latin form etesiae), ''meltemia'' ( el, ετησίες,μελτέμια; pl. of meltemi), or meltem ( Turkish) are the strong, dry north winds of the Aegea ...
", a platform for low-end smartphones. With the Microsoft alliance and under Elop's management, Nokia also had a renewed focus on the North American market where Nokia phones were, in stark contrast to the rest of the world, almost irrelevant for many years. This strategy began in January 2012 with the introduction of the
Nokia Lumia 900 The Nokia Lumia 900 is a Windows Phone-powered smartphone, first unveiled on January 9, 2012 by Nokia at Consumer Electronics Show 2012, where it won the Best Smartphone award in January 2012. The phone has 4G LTE support and was released in Ap ...
smartphone in partnership with U.S. carrier
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...
. In March 2011, Nokia introduced a new corporate typeface called "Pure". On 1 August 2011, Nokia announced that it would adopt a new three-digit naming system for mobile phone products and stop using letters, effectively ending the
Nseries The Nokia Nseries was a high-end lineup of feature phones, smartphones, and tablets marketed by Nokia Corporation from 2005 to 2011. The Nseries devices commonly supported multiple high-speed wireless technologies at the time, such as 3G, or Wirel ...
, Eseries, and short-lived
Cseries The Airbus A220 is a family of five-abreast narrow-body airliners by Airbus Canada Limited Partnership. It was originally designed by Bombardier and had two years in service as the Bombardier CSeries. The program was launched on 13 July 2 ...
. That same day the Nokia 500 was introduced with the new system. Nokia last used three-digit names on analogue phones in the 1990s. When the
Lumia 920 Nokia Lumia 920 is a smartphone developed by Nokia that runs the Windows Phone 8 operating system. It was announced on September 5, 2012, and was first released on November 2, 2012. It has a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait CPU and a 4.5" IP ...
was announced in September 2012, it was seen by the press as the first high-end Windows Phone that could challenge rivals due to its advanced feature set. Elop said that the positive reaction to it had created a sense of hope and optimism in the company. The company was also making gains in developing countries with its Asha series, which were selling strongly. Although Nokia's smartphone sales and market share greatly increased throughout 2013, including in the North American market, it was still not enough to avoid financial losses. Ollila stepped down as chairman on 4 May 2012 and was replaced by Risto Siilasmaa. In September 2013, Nokia announced the sale of its mobile and devices division to Microsoft. The sale was positive for Nokia to avoid further negative financial figures, as well as for Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer, who wanted Microsoft to produce more hardware and turn it into a devices and services company. The Nokia chairman, Risto Siilasmaa, described the deal as rationally correct (in the best interests of Nokia shareholders), but emotionally difficult – experts agree that Nokia would have been in a cash crisis had it not sold the division to Microsoft. Analysts believe that Ballmer pushed for the buyout because of fears that Nokia was close to adopting Android and abandoning their alliance with Microsoft. Indeed, in January 2014 the Nokia X was introduced which ran on a customised version of Android. It was a surprising and somewhat odd launch coming just weeks away from the finalization of the Microsoft buyout. Others, including Ballmer's successor Satya Nadella, felt that Microsoft thought merging their software teams with Nokia's hardware engineering and designs would "accelerate" growth of Windows Phone. The sale was completed in April 2014, with
Microsoft Mobile Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft i ...
becoming the successor to Nokia's mobile devices division. Nokia also moved from its headquarters to another building complex located at Karaportti. At the time, Ballmer himself was retiring as Microsoft CEO and was replaced by Satya Nadella, who opposed the Nokia mobile phones purchase, along with chairman
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
. The purchased assets from Nokia were eventually written-off by Microsoft in 2015. By 2014, Nokia's global brand value according to Interbrand fell to 98th place, a sharp slide from the 5th place it was in 2009. Nokia's downfall in the mobile phone market has had different explanations from analysts, with many split about the CEO's decision to abandon its in-house operating system and adopting Windows Phone in 2011. Many researchers have concluded that Nokia suffered from deep internal rivalries within the management. Former employees claimed that the management became so swollen by the early success that they grew complacent over time. Some from the Symbian developing team have claimed that the company's upper management rejected hundreds of potential innovations during the 2000s that they proposed, including entirely rewriting Symbian's code. One former Nokia employee claimed that the company was run as a "
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
-style bureaucracy". In July 2013, Nokia bought Siemens' stake in the Nokia Siemens Networks joint venture for $2.2 billion, turning it into a wholly owned subsidiary called Nokia Solutions and Networks, until being rebranded as
Nokia Networks Nokia Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)) is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Co ...
soon after. During Nokia's financial struggles, its profitable networking division with Siemens provided much of its income; thus, the purchase proved to be positive, particularly after the sale of its mobile devices unit.


2014–2016

After the sale of its mobile devices division, Nokia focused on network equipment through
Nokia Networks Nokia Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)) is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Co ...
. In October 2014, Nokia and
China Mobile China Mobile is the trade name of both China Mobile Limited () and its ultimate controlling shareholder, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. (, formerly known as China Mobile Communications Corporation, "CMCC"), a Chinese state-ownedSt ...
signed a US$970 million framework deal for delivery between 2014 and 2015. On 17 November 2014, Nokia Technologies head Ramzi Haidamus disclosed that the company planned to re-enter the consumer electronics business as an
original design manufacturer An original design manufacturer is a company that designs and manufactures a product that is eventually rebranded by another firm for sale. Such companies allow the firm that owns or licenses the brand to produce products while having to engage i ...
, licensing in-house hardware designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers. Haidamus stated that the Nokia brand was "valuable" but "is diminishing in value, and that's why it is important that we reverse that trend very quickly, imminently". The next day, Nokia unveiled the N1, an Android tablet manufactured by
Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...
, as its first product following the Microsoft sale. Haidamus emphasized that devices released under these licensing agreements would be held to high standards in production quality, and would "look and feel just like Nokia built it". Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri stated that the company planned to re-enter the mobile phone business in this manner in 2016, following the expiration of its non-compete clause with Microsoft. According to Robert Morlino, the spokesman of Nokia Technologies, Nokia planned to follow the brand-licensing model rather than direct marketing of mobile devices due to the sale of its mobile devices division to Microsoft. The company took aggressive steps to revitalize itself, evident through its hiring of software experts, testing of new products and seeking of sales partners. On 14 July 2015, CEO Rajeev Suri confirmed that the company would make a return to the mobile phones market in 2016. On 28 July 2015, Nokia announced OZO, a 360-degrees
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
camera, with eight 2K optical image sensors. The division behind the product, Nokia Technologies, claimed that OZO would be the most advanced VR film-making platform. Nokia's press release stated that OZO would be "the first in a planned portfolio of digital media solutions," with more technological products expected in the future. OZO was fully unveiled on 30 November in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
. The OZO, designed for professional use, was intended for retail for US$60,000; however, its price was decreased by $15,000 prior to release, and is listed on its official website as $40,000. On 14 April 2015, Nokia confirmed that it was in talks with the French telecommunications equipment company
Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a s ...
regarding a potential merger. The next day, Nokia announced that it had agreed to purchase Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion in an all-stock deal. CEO Rajeev Suri felt that the purchase would give Nokia a strategic advantage in the development of 5G wireless technologies. The acquisition created a stronger competitor to the rival firms
Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informa ...
and
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
, whom Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent had surpassed in terms of total combined revenue in 2014. Nokia shareholders hold 66.5% of the new combined company, while Alcatel-Lucent shareholders hold 33.5%. The
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
division was to be maintained, but the Alcatel-Lucent brand would be replaced by Nokia. In October 2015, following approval of the deal by China's Ministry of Commerce, the merger awaited approval by French regulators. Despite the initial intent of selling the submarine cable division separately, Alcatel-Lucent later declared that it would not. The merger closed on 14 January 2016, but was not complete until 3 November 2016. From the acquisition, Nokia is now also the owner of the Alcatel mobile phone brand, which continues to be licensed to
TCL Corporation TCL Technology (originally an abbreviation for Telephone Communication Limited) is a Chinese electronics company headquartered in Huizhou, Guangdong Province. It designs, develops, manufactures, and sells consumer products including televisi ...
. On 3 August 2015, Nokia announced that it had reached a deal to sell its
Here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Technologies, Here Television * Here TV (form ...
digital maps division to a consortium of BMW,
Daimler AG The Mercedes-Benz Group AG (previously named Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufactu ...
and
Volkswagen Group Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial ...
for €2.8 billion. The deal closed on 3 December 2015.


2016–2019

On 26 April 2016, Nokia announced its intent to acquire French connected health device maker
Withings Withings (pronounced "WITH-things") is a French consumer electronics company headquartered in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. It also has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and Hong Kong, and distributes its products worldwide. Withings is kno ...
for US$191 million. The company was integrated into a new Digital Health unit of Nokia Technologies. Nokia later wrote off the cost of the acquisition and in May 2018 the health unit was sold back to Éric Carreel, a Withings co-founder and former CEO. On 18 May 2016, Microsoft Mobile sold its Nokia-branded feature phone business to
HMD Global HMD Global Oy, branded as HMD and Nokia Mobile, is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer. The company is made up of the mobile phone business that Nokia sold to Microsoft in 2014, then bought back in 2016. HMD began marketing Nokia-branded smar ...
, a new company founded by former Nokia executive Jean-Francois Baril, and an associated factory in Vietnam to
Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...
's
FIH Mobile Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan and Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer established in 1974 with headquarters in Tucheng, New ...
subsidiary. Nokia subsequently entered into a long-term licensing deal to make HMD the exclusive manufacturer of Nokia-branded phones and tablets outside Japan, operating in conjunction with Foxconn. The deal also granted HMD the right to essential patents and featurephone software. HMD subsequently announced the Android-based
Nokia 6 The Nokia 6 is a Nokia-branded mid-range smartphone running on Android. It is the first smartphone from the Finnish company HMD Global, created through the partial divestment of Nokia's devices division; the first Nokia-branded smartphone since ...
smartphone in January 2017. At Mobile World Congress, HMD additionally unveiled the
Nokia 3 The Nokia 3 is a Nokia-branded entry-level Android smartphone designed and marketed by HMD Global. It was announced on 26 February 2017, a day before the Mobile World Congress started, along with the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, and Nokia 3310 (2017). The ...
and
Nokia 5 The Nokia 5 is a mid-range Android smartphone by HMD Global. It was announced along with the Nokia 6, Nokia 3, and Nokia 3310 (2017) at the MWC 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. Specifications Hardware The Nokia 5 has a 5.2-inch LTPS IPS LCD display, ...
smartphones, as well as a re-imagining of Nokia's classic 3310 feature phone. While Nokia has no investment in the company, they do have some input in the new devices. On 28 June 2016, Nokia demonstrated for the first time a 5G-ready network. In February 2017 Nokia carried out a 5G connection in Oulu, Finland using the 5GTF standard, backed by
Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...
, on
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
architecture-based equipment. In July 2017, Nokia and
Xiaomi Corporation (; ), commonly known as Xiaomi and registered as Xiaomi Inc., is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, and household items. Behind Samsung, it is the second largest m ...
announced that they have signed a business collaboration agreement and a multi-year patent agreement, including a cross-license to each company's cellular standard-essential patents. In that year, Nokia's brand value was ranked 188th by Brand Finance, a jump of 147 places from 2016. Its rise was attributed to its health portfolio and new mobile phones developed by HMD Global. In January 2018, Nokia signed a deal with NTT Docomo, Japan's largest mobile operator, to provide 5G wireless radio base stations in the country by 2020. Later that month, Nokia announced the ReefShark line of 5G
chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the mo ...
s, claiming that it triples bandwidth to 84 Gbit/s. In March,
Solidium Solidium Oy is a Finnish state-owned investment company. Founded in 1991, Solidium's original purpose was to manage the property of SKOP Bank (''Säästöpankkien Keskus-Osake-Pankki''; fi), which went bankrupt in the early 1990s recession. In 2 ...
, the investment arm of the Finnish government, purchased a 3.3% stake in Nokia valued at €844 million. In May, Nokia announced that it had acquired a
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
-based IoT startup, SpaceTime Insight. In January 2019, the Canadian government announced that it would provide $40 million to support Nokia's research on 5G technology. A 2019 study revealed that Nokia phones performed far better than rivals Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, and Huawei in updating to the latest version of Android. The study, made by Counterpoint Research, found that 96 percent of Nokia phones were either sent with or updated to the latest Android version since Pie was released in 2018. Nokia's competitors were found to be all around roughly the 80 percent range.


2020–present

On March 2, 2020, Nokia announced Pekka Lundmark as its new CEO. Later that month, Nokia completed the acquisition of Elenion Technologies, a U.S.-based company focusing on silicon photonics technology to improve economics of advanced optical connectivity products. On May 27, 2020,
Sari Baldauf Sari Maritta Baldauf (born 10 August 1955 in Kotka, Finland) is a Finnish businesswoman who is chairman of the board of directors of Nokia. She joined the board in 2018 and became vice chair in 2019, before she succeeded Risto Siilasmaa as chairman ...
succeeded Risto Siilasmaa as chairwoman of the board of directors, and Kari Stadigh was appointed vice chair. In June, Nokia won a 5G contract worth approximately $450 million from
Taiwan Mobile Taiwan Mobile () is a mobile phone operator based in Taiwan. It is the second largest telecom company behind Chunghwa Telecom. History Taiwan Mobile started as part of a strategic divestment from the now defunct Pacific Electric Wire & Cable Co ...
to build out the telecom operator's next-generation network as the sole supplier. In October, Nokia announced a contract with
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...
to build a 4G mobile network for astronaut usage on the moon. The $14.1 million contract is through subsidiary Bell Labs, and the program is expected to launch in 2022. In 2020,
Flipkart Flipkart Private Limited is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bengaluru, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categorie ...
collaborated with Nokia to market Nokia-branded consumer products in India. These included televisions, a laptop and a range of air conditioners. In April 2022, Nokia announced that it will exit the Russian market following the country's invasion of Ukraine. The company stated that the decision will not have an impact on its financial outlook as Russia accounted for less than 2% of Nokia's net sales in 2021.


Current operations

Nokia is a julkinen osakeyhtiö (public joint-stock company) listed on the
Nasdaq Nordic Nasdaq Nordic is the common name for the subsidiaries of Nasdaq, Inc. that provide financial services and operate marketplaces for securities in the Nordic and Baltic regions of Europe. Historically, the operations were known by the company ...
/
Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
and New York stock exchanges. Nokia has played a very large role in the
economy of Finland The economy of Finland is a highly industrialised, mixed economy with a per capita output similar to that of western European economies such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The largest sector of Finland's economy is services at 72.7 p ...
, and it is an important employer in the country, working with multiple local partners and
subcontractor A subcontractor is an individual or (in many cases) a business that signs a contract to perform part or all of the obligations of another's contract. Put simply the role of a subcontractor is to execute the job they are hired by the contractor f ...
s. Nokia contributed 1.6% to Finland's GDP and accounted for about 16% of the country's exports in 2006. Nokia comprises two business groups along with further subsidiaries and affiliated firms.


Nokia Networks

Nokia Networks Nokia Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)) is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Co ...
is Nokia Corporation's largest division. It is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and is the world's third-largest telecoms equipment manufacturer, measured by 2017 revenues (after
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
and
Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
). In the USA it competes with Ericsson on building 5G networks for operators, while
Huawei Technologies Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
and
ZTE Corporation ZTE Corporation is a Chinese partially state-owned technology company that specializes in telecommunication. Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. ZTE's core business is wireless, exchange, opt ...
were effectively banned. It has operations in around 150 countries. Nokia Networks provides wireless and fixed network infrastructure, communications and networks service platforms and professional services to operators and service providers. It focuses on
GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...
,
EDGE Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed ...
, 3G/W-CDMA, LTE and
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...
radio access networks, supporting core networks with increasing IP and multiaccess capabilities and services. The Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) brand identity was launched at the 3GSM World Congress in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
in February 2007 as a joint venture between Nokia (50.1%) and Siemens (49.9%), although it is now wholly owned by Nokia. In July 2013, Nokia bought back all shares in Nokia Siemens Networks for a sum of US$2.21 billion and renamed it to Nokia Solutions and Networks, shortly thereafter changed to simply Nokia Networks.


Nokia Technologies

Nokia Technologies is a division of Nokia that develops consumer products and licenses technology including the ''Nokia'' brand. Its focuses are imaging, sensing, wireless connectivity, power management and materials, and other areas such as the IP licensing program. It consists of three labs: Radio Systems Lab, in areas of radio access, wireless local connectivity and radio implementation; Media Technologies Lab, in areas of multimedia and interaction; and Sensor and Material Technologies Lab, in areas of advanced sensing solutions, interaction methods, nanotechnologies and quantum technologies. Nokia Technologies also provides public participation in its development through the ''Invent with Nokia'' program. It was created in 2014 following a restructuring of Nokia Corporation. In November 2014, Nokia Technologies launched its first product, the Nokia N1
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being com ...
. In July 2015, Nokia Technologies introduced a VR camera called OZO, designed for professional content creators and developed in
Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
, Finland. With its 8 synchronized shutter sensors and 8 microphones, the product can capture stereoscopic 3D video and
spatial audio Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener ( surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to su ...
. On 31 August 2016, Ramzi Haidamus announced he would be stepping down from his position as president of Nokia Technologies. Brad Rodrigues, previously head of strategy and business development, assumed the role of interim president. On 30 June 2017, Gregory Lee, previously CEO of
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, a ...
in North America, was appointed Nokia Technologies CEO and president.


Nokia Bell Labs

Nokia Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
is a research and scientific development firm that was once the R&D arm of the American Bell System. It became a subsidiary of Nokia Corporation after the takeover of
Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a s ...
in 2016.


NGP Capital

NGP Capital (formerly Nokia Growth Partners) is a global venture capital firm, focusing on investments in the growth stage " Internet of things" (IoT) and
mobile technology Mobile technology is the technology used for cellular communication. Mobile technology has evolved rapidly over the past few years. Since the start of this millennium, a standard mobile device has gone from being no more than a simple two-way pag ...
companies. NGP holds investments throughout the U.S., Europe, China and India. Their portfolio consists of companies in mobile technology including the sectors Connected Enterprise, Digital Health, Consumer IoT, and Connected Car. Following a $350 million funding for IoT companies in 2016, NGP manages $1 billion worth of assets. Nokia had previously promoted innovation through venture sponsorships dating back to 1998 with Nokia Venture Partners, which was renamed BlueRun Ventures and spun off in 2005. Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) was founded in 2005 as a growth stage venture fund as a continuation of the early successes of Nokia Venture Partners. In 2017, the company was renamed to NGP Capital. NGP's largest exits include GanJi,
UCWeb UCWeb Inc. (also known as UC Mobile) is a Chinese mobile Internet company that offers products and services including mobile browser, UC News, and search. Its flagship product, UC Browser, topped the Chinese, Indonesian and Indian markets in ...
, Whistle,
Rocket Fuel Rocket propellant is the reaction mass of a rocket. This reaction mass is ejected at the highest achievable velocity from a rocket engine to produce thrust. The energy required can either come from the propellants themselves, as with a chemical ...
, Swype, Summit Microelectronics and Netmagic.


Nuage Networks

Nuage Networks is a venture providing
software-defined networking Software-defined networking (SDN) technology is an approach to network management that enables dynamic, programmatically efficient network configuration in order to improve network performance and monitoring, making it more like cloud computing t ...
solutions. It was formed by Alcatel-Lucent in 2013 to develop a software overlay for automating and orchestrating hybrid clouds. It has been part of Nokia following their acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2016. Throughout 2017 Nuage sealed deals with
Vodafone Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. , Vod ...
and
Telefónica Telefónica, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the world. It provides fixed and mobile telephony, broadba ...
to provide its
SD-WAN A software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) is a wide area network that uses software-defined network technology, such as communicating over the Internet using overlay tunnels which are encrypted when destined for internal organization location ...
architecture to their servers. BT had already been a client since 2016. A deal with
China Mobile China Mobile is the trade name of both China Mobile Limited () and its ultimate controlling shareholder, China Mobile Communications Group Co., Ltd. (, formerly known as China Mobile Communications Corporation, "CMCC"), a Chinese state-ownedSt ...
in January 2017 also used Nuage's software-defined networking technology for 2,000 public cloud servers at existing data centers in China, and another in October 2017 with
China Pacific Insurance Company China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. (CPIC) known as Pacific Insurance, is a Chinese insurance company. It was established on the basis of the former China Pacific Insurance Corporation, which was founded in 1991 approved by the People's Ban ...
. The company is based in Mountain View, California and the CEO is Sunil Khandekar.


Alcatel Mobile

Alcatel Mobile is a mobile phone brand owned by Nokia since 2016. It has been licensed since 2005 to Chinese company
TCL TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company **TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...
when it was under the ownership of Alcatel (later
Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a s ...
) in a contract until 2024.


HMD Global

HMD Global is a mobile phone company based in Espoo, Finland. The Nokia brand has been licensed by former Nokia employees who founded
HMD Global HMD Global Oy, branded as HMD and Nokia Mobile, is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer. The company is made up of the mobile phone business that Nokia sold to Microsoft in 2014, then bought back in 2016. HMD began marketing Nokia-branded smar ...
and introduced Nokia-branded Android-based devices to the market in 2017. Nokia has no investment in the company but retains some input in the development of its devices. Nokia has 10.10% ownership in HMD Global after investing alongside Qualcomm and Google in 2020. In the 2020 financial report, FIH Mobile disclosed they have a 14.38% ownership in HMD Global. Finnish Nokia owns 10.10% of HMD Global, while other investors include Google, Qualcomm, and others with an undisclosed share in HMD.


Alcatel Submarine Networks

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is a provider of turnkey undersea network solutions. The business unit develops technology and offers installation services for optical submarine cable network links across the world's oceans.


Corporate affairs


Corporate governance

The control and management of Nokia is divided among the shareholders at a general meeting and the Nokia Group Leadership Team (left), under the direction of the board of directors (right). The chairman and the rest of the Nokia Leadership Team members are appointed by the board of directors. Only the chairman of the Nokia Leadership Team can belong to both the board of directors and the Nokia Group Leadership Team. The Board of Directors' committees consist of the Audit Committee, the Personnel Committee, and the Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee. The operations of the company are managed within the framework set by the Finnish Companies Act, Nokia's Articles of Association, and Corporate Governance Guidelines, supplemented by the board of directors' adopted charters. On 25 November 2019, Nokia announced that it would discontinue the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) and distribute its functions to other company leaders. As a result, Chief Operating Officer Joerg Erlemeier decided to step down, effective 1 January 2020.


Former corporate officers


Stock

Nokia is a public limited liability company and is the oldest company listed under the same name on the
Helsinki Stock Exchange The Nasdaq Helsinki, formerly known as the Helsinki Stock Exchange ( fi, Helsingin Pörssi, sv, Helsingforsbörsen), is a stock exchange located in Helsinki, Finland. Since 3 September 2003, it has been part of Nasdaq Nordic (previously called ...
, beginning in 1915. Nokia has had a secondary listing on the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...
since 1994. Nokia shares were delisted from the
London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...
in 2003, the Paris Stock Exchange in 2004, the
Stockholm Stock Exchange Nasdaq Stockholm, formerly known as the Stockholm Stock Exchange ( sv, Stockholmsbörsen), is a stock exchange located in Frihamnen, Stockholm, Sweden. Founded in 1863, it has become the primary securities exchange of the Nordic countries. As ...
in 2007 and the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange The Frankfurt Stock Exchange (german: link=no, Börse Frankfurt, former German name – FWB) is the world's 12th largest stock exchange by market capitalization. It has operations from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm ( German time). Organisation Loca ...
in 2012. Due to the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2015, Nokia listed its shares again on the Paris Stock Exchange and was included in the CAC 40 index on 6 January 2016 but later removed on 18 September 2017. In 2007, Nokia had a market capitalization of €110 billion; by 17 July 2012 this had fallen to €6.28 billion, and by 23 February 2015, it increased to €26.07 billion. Nokia market cap at 2020 was 21.76 billion.


Corporate culture

Nokia's official
corporate culture Historically there have been differences among investigators regarding the definition of organizational culture. Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined "organizational culture" as comprising a number of features, including a ...
manifesto since the 1990s is called ''The Nokia Way''. It emphasizes the speed and flexibility of decision-making in a
flat Flat or flats may refer to: Architecture * Flat (housing), an apartment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and other Commonwealth countries Arts and entertainment * Flat (music), a symbol () which denotes a lower pitch * Flat (soldier), ...
, networked organization. The official business language of Nokia is English. All documentation is written in English, and is used in official intra-company communication. In 1992, Nokia adopted values that were defined with the key words ''respect'', ''achievement'', ''renewal'' and ''challenge''. In May 2007, the company redefined its values after initiating a series of discussion across its worldwide branches regarding what the new values of the company should be. Based on the employee suggestions, the new values were defined as: ''Engaging You'', ''Achieving Together'', ''Passion for Innovation'' and ''Very Human''. In August 2014, Nokia redefined its values again after the sale of its Devices business, using the original 1992 values again.


Headquarters

Nokia are based at Karaportti in
Espoo Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...
, Finland, just outside capital
Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
. It has been their head office since 2014 after moving from the purpose-built Nokia House in Espoo as part of the sale of the mobile phone business to Microsoft. The building in Karaportti was previously the headquarters of NSN (now Nokia Networks).


Awards and recognition

In 2018, Nokia received the Leading Lights award for most innovative cable/video product and was named to
Ethisphere The Ethisphere Institute is a for-profit company that defines and measures corporate ethical standards, recognizes companies that excel, and promotes best practices in corporate ethics. The company is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. The compan ...
's 2018 world's most ethical companies list.


Logo history

File:Nokian logo (1865).svg, alt=Nokia Osakeyhtiö logo, 1865., ''Nokia Osakeyhtiö'' logo, 1865 File:Nokia logo 1965.svg, alt=Nokia Osakeyhtiö logo, 1965., ''Nokia Osakeyhtiö'' logo, 1965 File:Suomen Kumitehtaan logo (1965).svg, alt=Finnish Rubber Works (Suomen Kumitehdas) logo, 1965–1986., Finnish Rubber Works ('' Suomen Kumitehdas'') logo, 1965–1986 File:Nokia nuolilogo.svg, Nokia 'Arrows' logo, after merging with the Cable Factory (''
Kaapelitehdas Kaapelitehdas ( Finnish for "the Cable Factory", also called simply Kaapeli, sv, Kabelfabriken) is a famous building in Salmisaari, Helsinki, near the Lauttasaari bridge. It was redeveloped from its industrial use into a cultural centre which ...
'') and Finnish Rubber Works (1966–1992). Used in advertising and products until c. 1997. File:Nokia Connecting People.svg, Nokia introduced its ''"Connecting People"'' advertising slogan in 1992, coined by Ove Strandberg. File:Nokia - 2005 logo.svg, New slogan typeface (Nokia Sans font) introduced in 2005. Nokia Sans had been used by Nokia in products since 2002. File:Nokia wordmark.svg, Bold version introduced in 2007. The company stopped using a slogan with its logo in 2011. File:Nokia typefaces.png, alt=History of Nokia's corporate typeface., History of Nokia's corporate typeface


Controversies


NSN's provision of intercept capability to Iran

In 2008,
Nokia Siemens Networks Nokia Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)) is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Corp ...
, a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens AG, reportedly provided
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
's monopoly telecom company with technology that allowed it to intercept the Internet communications of its citizens. The technology reportedly allowed Iran to use
deep packet inspection Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a type of data processing that inspects in detail the data being sent over a computer network, and may take actions such as alerting, blocking, re-routing, or logging it accordingly. Deep packet inspection is oft ...
to read and change the content of emails, social media, and online phone calls. The technology "enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes". During the post-election protests in Iran in June 2009, Iran's Internet access was reported to have slowed to less than a tenth of its normal speeds, which experts suspected was due to using of deep packet inspection. In July 2009, Nokia began to experience a boycott of their products and services in
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The boycott was led by consumers sympathetic to the post-election protest movement and targeted companies deemed to be collaborating with the regime. Demand for handsets fell and users began shunning
SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
messaging. Nokia Siemens Networks asserted in a press release that it provided Iran only with a "lawful intercept capability solely for monitoring of local voice calls" and that it "has not provided any deep packet inspection, web censorship, or Internet filtering capability to Iran".


Lex Nokia

In 2009, Nokia heavily supported a law in Finland that allows companies to monitor their employees' electronic communications in cases of suspected information leaking. Nokia denied rumors that the company had considered moving its head office out of Finland if laws on electronic surveillance were not changed. The Finnish media dubbed the law ''Lex Nokia'' because it was implemented as a result of Nokia's pressure. The law was enacted, but with strict requirements for the implementation of its provisions. No company had used its provisions prior to 25 February 2013, when the Office of Data Protection Ombudsman confirmed that city of
Hämeenlinna Hämeenlinna (; sv, Tavastehus; krl, Hämienlinna; la, Tavastum or ''Croneburgum'') is a city and municipality of about inhabitants in the heart of the historical province of Tavastia and the modern province of Kanta-Häme in the south of F ...
had recently given the required notice.


Nokia–Apple patent dispute

In October 2009, Nokia filed a lawsuit against
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
in the U.S. District Court of Delaware claiming that Apple infringed on 10 of its patents related to wireless communication including data transfer. Apple was quick to respond with a countersuit filed in December 2009 accusing Nokia of 11 patent infringements. Apple's general counsel, Bruce Sewell went a step further by stating, "Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours." This resulted in a legal battle between the two telecom majors with Nokia filing another suit, this time with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging Apple had infringed its patents in "virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers". Nokia went on to ask the court to ban all U.S. imports of the Apple products, including the iPhone,
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
and iPod. Apple countersued by filing a complaint with the ITC in January 2010. In June 2011, Apple settled with Nokia and agreed to an estimated one time payment of $600 million and royalties to Nokia. The two companies also agreed on a cross-licensing patents for some of their patented technologies.


Alleged tax evasion in India

Nokia's Indian subsidiary was charged in January 2013 with non-payment of Indian
Tax Deducted at Source Tax deduction at source (TDS) in India is a means of collecting tax on income, dividends, or asset sales by requiring the payer (or legal intermediary) to deduct tax due before paying the balance to the payee (and the tax to the revenue authori ...
and transgressing
transfer pricing In taxation and accounting, transfer pricing refers to the rules and methods for pricing transactions within and between enterprises under common ownership or control. Because of the potential for cross-border controlled transactions to distort ...
norms in India. The unpaid TDS of 30 billion, accrued during a course of six years, was due to royalty paid by the Indian subsidiary to its parent company.


Nokia 7 Plus data breach

In March 2019, news broke that the company's Nokia 7 Plus phones were allegedly sending personal user data to China over several months. According to investigators, the gadget sent unencrypted data packages including geographical location,
SIM card A typical SIM card (mini-SIM with micro-SIM cutout) A GSM mobile phone file:Simkarte NFC SecureElement.jpg, T-Mobile nano-SIM card with NFC capabilities in the SIM tray of an iPhone 6s file:Tf sim both sides.png, A TracFone Wireless SIM card ha ...
number, and the phone's serial number to an unidentified Chinese server every time that "the phone was turned on, the screen activated or unlocked." The data was sufficient to follow the movements and actions of the phone in real time. Nokia brand owner
HMD Global HMD Global Oy, branded as HMD and Nokia Mobile, is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer. The company is made up of the mobile phone business that Nokia sold to Microsoft in 2014, then bought back in 2016. HMD began marketing Nokia-branded smar ...
denied any such transfers had taken place, stating that it was instead the result of an error in the packing process of the phone's software. The Finnish Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman launched an investigation into the matter on the assumption "that personal data has been transferred."


Xinjiang region

In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands, including Nokia, of being connected to forced Uyghur labor in
Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...
.


See also

*
Nokia Networks Nokia Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)) is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Co ...
*
Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
– a town in
Pirkanmaa Pirkanmaa (; sv, Birkaland; la, Birkaria, link=no), also known as ''Tampere Region'' in government documents, is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Satakunta, South Ostrobothnia, Central Finland, Päijät-Häme, Kanta-Häme an ...
,
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
* Nokia Arena * Nokian Tyres * History of Nokia *
Jolla Jolla Oy (sometimes referred to as Jolla Ltd.) is a Finnish technology company; vendor and developer of Sailfish OS. Headquartered in Tampere, Finland, Jolla has its own research and development offices in Helsinki, Tampere and Cyberport, Hong ...
– a company started by former Nokia employees which develops Linux
Sailfish OS Sailfish OS is a Linux-based operating system based on free software, and open source projects such as Mer as well as including a closed source UI. The project is being developed by the Finnish company Jolla. The OS first shipped with the ...
, a continuation of Linux
MeeGo MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances ...
OS * Twig Com – originally Benefon, formerly a mobile phone manufacturer started by former Nokia people, now a maker of personal safety and GPS tracking products *
Microsoft Mobile Microsoft Mobile was a subsidiary of Microsoft involved in the development and manufacturing of mobile phones. Based in Espoo, Finland, it was established in 2014 following the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division by Microsoft i ...
– the rebranding of Nokia's Device and Services division after its acquisition by Microsoft *
HMD Global HMD Global Oy, branded as HMD and Nokia Mobile, is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer. The company is made up of the mobile phone business that Nokia sold to Microsoft in 2014, then bought back in 2016. HMD began marketing Nokia-branded smar ...
– the post-Microsoft continuation of Android-based Nokia devices


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External links

* * {{Authority control, state=expanded 1865 establishments in Finland 1910s initial public offerings Companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Display technology companies Electronics companies of Finland Finnish brands Manufacturing companies based in Espoo Manufacturing companies established in 1865 Mobile phone companies of Finland Multinational companies headquartered in Finland Networking hardware companies Radio manufacturers Technology companies established in 1865 Technology companies of Finland Telecommunications companies of Finland Telecommunications equipment vendors Meme stock