Nokia, a brand that was once synonymous to trust and brought back fond memories of the past is pushing forward full-force to make amends and revive its legacy as the top smartphone maker on the globe. To make this dream a reality again, it has signed a brand agreement with home-brewed Finnish manufacturer, HMD Global Oy.
According to the agreement, Nokia has provided HMD with exclusive brand rights and intellectual property licensing in exchange for royalties that come in from sales. This means HMD is free to use Nokia branding on smartphone and feature phone products manufactured by it.
It, however, wouldn’t be easy for Nokia and HMD to make a return to an already crowded and fragmented market led by Apple, Samsung and many others. But it seems that HMD has already found a solution for that problem as well.
Announced this week, HMD Global has appointed Pekka Rantala, former CEO of Angry Birds-maker Rovio, as the Chief Marketing Officer of the company. He joined the game company late in 2014, but left after only a rough year long stint. During his time at the company, he undertook the job of imposing deep job cuts and restructuring to achieve profitability. Prior to his job at Rovio, Rantala had worked in Nokia for a lengthy sixteen years, from 1994 to 2011.
Nokia’s Tumultuous History
After continuing to rule the mobile device market for decades, Nokia took one off step that costed them their leadership — it picked to go with Windows Mobile instead of Android like others. One thing lead to another and we reached a point when it agreed to sell its smartphone hardware business to Microsoft at the end of 2013. Post acquisition, Redmond continued to use the Nokia branding for feature phones, but rebranded the Lumia lineup under its own name. The company, however, still struggled to find buyers for its coveted Windows smartphones.
Citing flagging sales, Microsoft announced that it has sold part of the mobile hardware business — entry-level feature phone — to Foxconn Technology subsidiary, FIH Mobile Ltd. and HMD Global,Oy for a meagre sum of $350 million. As part of this deal, Microsoft will eventually transfer all of its feature phone assets, including software, brand, services and even the care network. It will also transfer other assets, including customer contracts, and critical supply agreements.
If you’re unaware, you should know that HMD Global,Oy is currently run by Nokia veteran Arto Nummela. So, all this points to the certain rebirth of the Nokia brand I’m the coming months and I’m fairly excited for it. The two companies haven’t dropped a word on its plans for the future releases, and that is one of the only troublesome things left to address.
