Nokia brand to make a comeback with smartphone launch

Nokia phones will soon be back on the market, 18 months after Microsoft quietly killed off the brand.

Worth $300bn (£205bn) at its peak, the Finnish phone-maker failed to capitalise on the smartphone boom. It was bought out by Microsoft for $6bn (£4.1bn) in 2013, but has now been split in two and sold off for just $350m (£240m).

The sale relates to the 'feature phone' business, which covers simpler devices that are distinct from high-powered 'smartphones' like the iPhone. But the buyer of this part of the operation has also acquired the Nokia brand name for ten years and has pledged to apply it to a new range of smartphones and tablets.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The acquirer is a new company called HMD, formed by former Nokia employees in Finland. "It looks likely that any effort will appeal to the nostalgia of those who remember the Finnish company at its height", says The Guardian.

"Branding has become a critical differentiator in mobile phones, which is why our business model is centred on the unique asset of the Nokia brand," said the chief executive of HMD global, Arto Nummela.

Alongside the sale of the brand, the manufacturing, distribution and sales arms of the company have been acquired by Foxconn, one of the primary manufacturers of the iPhone. Its entry into the smartphone market could signal a desire for a greater public profile.

Foxconn has also signed a deal to manufacture the devices that the new Nokia will launch.

Last year Microsoft removed the Nokia brand from its own Windows-powered Lumia smartphones, which it will continue to produce under its own name. The new Nokia phones will use Google's Android operating system.