Nokia, the phone company that many of us grew up with, will be making a grand return to the phones and tablets market as the brand will be revived through a new licensing agreement.
In a statement issued by the company itself, Nokia has announced that it will license its brand and intellectual property to a new company called HMD global. Based in Finland, HMD global will be led by Nokia veteran Arto Nummela. HMD global has since managed to agree on a conditional deal with Microsoft to acquire the rights to use the Nokia name on feature phones as well as some related design rights.
Foxconn may also be involved in the upcoming Nokia devices as Microsoft has sold off a huge chunk of its feature phone to its subsidiary, FIH Mobile. HMD global and FIH already have a standing agreement in place that would see them ‘support the building of a global business for Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets’.
It’ll be interesting to see what HMD global can do with the Nokia brand in the near future. Seeing as Microsoft’s experiment with the Lumia Windows phone has failed badly, it’ll be interesting to see if the Nokia brand as a whole can bounce back from that setback.
Source: HMD global, Microsoft, The Verge