Corporate blog post suggests return to device market with come via brand-licensing model
With building speculation, a Nokia spokesman addressed rumors about the Finnish networking gear – and former device – powerhouse returning to the lucrative smartphone market.
Last year Nokia sold its smartphone market for $9.5 billion. Fast-forward to earlier this month; Microsoft cut nearly 8,000 former Nokia jobs.
This move raised questions about Nokia’s future in the device space, which Nokia Technologies spokesman Robert Morlino addressed in a July 13 corporate blog post.
“For 14 years Nokia was the biggest cell phone maker in the world, and the brand became a household name – one that evoked quality, innovation and human connection. The brand is still recognized that way by millions of people around the world, which is incredibly gratifying and a huge compliment for the people who helped create it. So it’s not surprising that today, the question comes up all the time: will Nokia return to mobile devices?
“The answer is: it’s complicated,” Morlino wrote.
He said that while the company has focused lately on “mobile network infrastructure, location and mapping services, and technology development and licensing,” a return to the device market will be done “in a completely different way from before.”
“The right path back to mobile phones for Nokia is through a brand-licensing model. That means identifying a partner that can be responsible for all of the manufacturing, sales, marketing and customer support for a product,” he wrote.
“If and when we find a world-class partner who can take on those responsibilities, we would work closely with them to guide the design and technology differentiation, as we did with the Nokia N1 Android tablet. That’s the only way the bar would be met for a mobile device we’d be proud to have bear the Nokia brand, and that people will love to buy.”
Morlino said the right partner will “take on the heavy lifting and work closely with us to deliver a great product.”
He added the caveat that a return to the device market, based on an agreement with Microsoft, could happen in the fourth quarter of 2016. “So it’s safe to say Nokia won’t be back (at least in phone form …) before then.”
