The Fall and Return of Nokia – When the iPhone hit the market in 2007, and afterward we had an authentic flood of Android smartphones in 2008… Everything changed in the mobile phone industry! The dominant former manufacturers, such as Nokia and BlackBerry, started to lag behind, failing to innovate (or rethink their products) in time to catch the train that was already running at full speed.
But in this theme, the most interesting brand is undeniably Nokia, which was basically the giant to win at the time! However, as they say… The higher it is, the greater the fall. Therefore, the Filandian giant quickly found itself in a period of stagnation and later of a fall! Thus failing to maintain its dominant position, and of course, eventually being bought by Microsoft.
A company that at the time saw a great opportunity to enter the market, with its own Windows Mobile Operating System.
So… How come we now see so many Nokia smartphones with Android OS?
The story is quite interesting, with a mix of acquisitions, bad choices, and licensing deals… So, let’s see what happened after all!
Nokia’s Fall and Return – Whoever falls, ‘dies’ or gets up!
To understand Nokia’s return, we have to understand how the company ‘fell’! And why he sold his mobile department to the giant Microsoft. That said, a good starting point is 2010, when Stephen Elop was appointed as the company’s CEO.
In case you didn’t know, before this, Elop was the ‘head’ of Microsoft’s business division, being responsible for several projects like Microsoft Office.
At this point, the first iPhone had been launched three years ago, and the first Android two years ago. However, Nokia continued to bet on the Symbian Operating System, which continued to dominate the market with a 37% share… However, in a very curious way, before all this, Nokia was even preparing a new OS, to take the place of Symbian, named MeeGo!
Yeah… But in 2011, Stephen Elop sent the now famous ‘Burning Platform’ memo!
Therefore, in a letter of almost 1300 words, the then CEO of Nokia, compared the Symbian Operating System to an oil-burning platform! Affirming that the company needed to give up this So as soon as possible, in order to survive in the market.
In addition, Elop also shared his disillusionment with Symbian and MeeGo, saying that “The first iPhone was launched in 2007, and we still don’t have a product that gets to the heels of its user experience.“
Here you can read an excerpt from the letter:
“The device battle has now become an ecosystem war! Where we not only have to include the hardware, but also the software for each device. In other words, developers, applications, e-commerce, advertisements, research, social applications, location-based services, etc… Our competitors are not stealing market share from us with their devices, but with their ecosystems.
We will have to decide, whether we build an ecosystem from scratch, or if we join an existing one.”
Nokia’s Fall and Return – The Windows Phone
Well, Elop mentioned that Nokia would announce a new strategy on February 11th… It is exactly on this date that the company announced a partnership with Microsoft.
With this new partnership, Nokia has put all its trust in the Windows Phone Operating System! Thus, MeeGo was in the background, reaching the market only by the hand of the Nokia N9. (Similarly, the last Symbian phone was the Nokia 808 in 2012.)
However, Elop came to the public to say that Nokia wanted to use the Microsoft Operating System, to differentiate itself from the rest of its rivals… Thus, we had the first Nokia Windows Phone, the Lumia 800, launched in November 2011.
In case you didn’t know, sales of this and similar devices were good at launch! But competition from the iPhone and all Android smartphones already on the market was increasingly a problem for Nokia. Therefore, due to all the investment and ‘internal wars’, when the Lumia range started to have results below expectations, Nokia started to be very close to the broken banking.
Finally, in September 2013, Nokia announced that it would sell its mobile division to Microsoft! As part of the deal, CEO Stephen Elop would return to his old company. Interestingly, before the sale was made official in April 2014… Nokia announced a line of Android smartphones, called Nokia X! But this effort was quickly ‘killed’ by Microsoft.
Nokia’s Fall and Return – Licensing and HMD Global
Due to the agreement with Microsoft, Nokia could no longer sell smartphones using its own brand! (At least until the end of 2016)
But this did not stop Nokia from going after other market segments… And so, a few days after the sale, the development of the Nokia N1 tablet began.
In November 2014, Ramzi Haidamus (president of Nokia) explained that the company would start licensing the ‘Nokia’ brand to other manufacturers.
So, the very next day, the Android tablet Nokia N1 was announced with Nokia design but manufactured by Foxconn.
In short, the N1 was launched in January 2015, but by the end of the year, there had been no announcements about new launches or products in development… So in 2016, Microsoft decided to sell the feature phone business to FIH Mobile and HMD Global. At the same time, Nokia announced a partnership with HMD Global, making it the only manufacturer with Nokia’s permission to use its brand on smartphones.
Thus, the first Nokia device ‘by HMD’ was the Nokia 150, a basic $ 26 phone. Later, in January 2017, we had the Nokia 6. However, at MWC that year, HMD Global also announced the Nokia 5, Nokia 3, and a new Nokia 3310.
Nokia’s Fall and Return – The ‘Real’ Nokia
If you’ve read the article so far, you may have noticed that Nokia mobile phones… Not really ‘real’ Nokias, but HMD Global products that use the old manufacturer’s name. After all, Nokia’s former mobile division is still part of Microsoft… (Despite having already given up on this market)
However, at the base of HMD, we found several Nokia veterans, and interestingly, it is also based in Finland! The brand’s home country.
What do you think about this? Share your opinion with us in the comments below!
