There are Nokia smartphones and feature phones in the market.
However, Nokia Corporation does not manufacture its phones anymore. A Finnish company named HMD is the current producer of Nokia-branded phones.
As of 2023, Nokia is nearly a 160-year-old company and has dominated the cellphone market single-handedly in the 90s.
Read the following article to learn how Nokia lost its popularity in the cell phone market.
Is Nokia no longer making phones?
Unfortunately, Nokia Corporation does not manufacture Nokia phones anymore.
Nokia sold its brand name as a license for smart and feature phones to HMD in 2016. Now, HMD is the manufacturer of Nokia branded phones you see on the market. However, the license’s validity is till 2024.
Nokia’s mobile phone business fell apart due to a lack of proper guidance and neglect of the adaptation to the updated technologies.
Besides, beating OSs like Google’s Android and Apple’s IOS was impossible for Nokia. As a result, the Nokia cellphone division was running out of popularity as well as business.
To reclaim the lost glory, Nokia sold licenses to numerous companies so that those companies could bring back the fame Nokia lost. As of 2023, HMD is the license holder of Nokia.
Related Read: Is Sony Still Making Phones
Why is Nokia no longer available?
Nokia is still on the market. However, the sales and production of this company’s cell phones have been reduced significantly. The primary factor in Nokia’s downfall is the rising of companies like Apple and Google.
In 2014, Nokia sold its brand name to Microsoft. Microsoft released three series with Nokia, including Lumia, X, and Asha, using the Microsoft OS. However, the strategy of using Microsoft OS did not pay off.
The phones Microsoft was releasing were based on the designs Nokia used before handing over the brand name’s license. The performance was fluent on these devices. However, features on Microsoft phones were limited.
As a result, Microsoft was facing losses and decided to cut off the production line. In 2016, HMD and Nokia collaborated and created HMD Global. In 2023, this hybrid company is producing Nokia.
But again, Nokia’s smartphones and feature phones cannot catch up with the tech giants. As the sales dropped significantly, Nokia may not be available in your region. But it does not mean Nokia is no longer available.
Why doesn’t Nokia make smartphones?
Nokia sells licenses to other companies to use its name for selling phones. However, Nokia itself does not manufacture any phones. And there are several reasons why it does not manufacture smartphones in recent years.
One of the main reasons is the operating system. Nokia used its own square home operating system for its touch phones.
When Google introduced the Android operating system, companies such as Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola, etc., started to use Google’s Android OS. As people began to get comfortable with Android phones, Nokia slowly started losing the market.
Therefore, Nokia stopped making phones and started selling licenses of its name to mobile phone manufacturers.
Why was Nokia a failure?
Several reasons are behind Nokia’s downfall. However, one of the most severe reasons why Nokia could not sustain its cell phone business is the lack of making an ecosystem.
Apple has its unique ecosystem. People with an iPhone, iPad, and an iMac can easily transfer data from one device to another without any extra effort. Besides, the fluency among the devices has brought the popularity of this tech company.
It is also true for the Pixel ecosystem from Google. Besides, Android was getting optimized every day, and catching up Google was getting harder. And now, it is a mere dream for Nokia to beat Google in the cellphone competition.
Besides these external factors, some internal issues were also wearing off Nokia’s cell phone division. Some of the known internal matters of Nokia are listed below to see at a glance:
- Internal destructive competition
- Lack of knowledge of what people want
- No lifestyle products such as earphones, earbuds, etc.
- Selling the handset division to Microsoft
Source:
- https://www.semiconductor-technology.com/projects/nokia/# – Manufacturing locations of Nokia phones (Semiconductor Technology)
- https://www.hmdglobal.com/en-US/business-about – About Nokia’s license claimer (HMD Global)
- https://www.nokia.com/about-us/our-history/ – History of Nokia (Nokia)
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363357979_Explanations_to_the_Failure_of_Nokia_Phone – Reasons behind Nokia’s failure (ResearchGate)
