Finnish telecoms gear maker Nokia stated late on Monday it was taking a look at re-getting into the mobile phone market by hanging a licensing cope with one other agency.
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Robert Morlino, representative for Nokia Technologies, said that Nokia is searching for an accomplice that can assume liability for the greater part of the manufacturing, deals, advertising, and client support for the products.
That’s because when Nokia sold its mobile division to Microsoft, it lost all of the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution capabilities that you need to make and sell phones. Currently, the Lumia brand of smartphones and tablets are being marketed under the Microsoft brand. Nokia would have a key role in the design and branding of the device, both of which enjoy superior levels of popularity and recognition across the world, especially in its stronghold markets such as India.
Nokia is reportedly planning to get back to the smartphone business.
The company revealed its intentions in response to recent media speculation and reported quotes from CEO Rajeev Suri that Nokia would design smartphones which would be manufactured by third party partners.
On the other hand, around 7,800 positions were cut by Microsoft, mainly from its phone business, and had to write down around $7.6 billion worth of assets after it acquired the device business of Nokia.
“Without diagnosing the failing of the Nokia technology platform investment, it’s clear Microsoft don’t have the scaling and user community to support it in a highly competitive market”, he said.
Here’s what Nokia said: “the question comes up all the time: will Nokia return to mobile devices?”
Thus the Nokia that exists right now is more about mobile network infrastructure, location and mapping services, technology development and licensing. For now, that will include looking for a partner company that is capable of handling several aspects of launching a new device.
Yet rumours that it will return to the smartphone market continued to persist, especially after it released its own Android tablet, the N1, earlier this year. One stipulation of that deal was that the remaining Nokia business could not produce and mobile phones until the final quarter of 2016.
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According to NPU, a job listing from Nokia suggests that the Finnish company might have already identified the key partner for building its first Android smartphone(s).
