HMD Global Officially Confirms to Launch Nokia Smartphones in 2017

Nummela says his team’s enduring relationships with phone service providers and retailers could help HMD quickly convince owners of Nokia feature phones to upgrade in markets like India, Indonesia and Russian Federation. However, the cult following that Nokia has even today could unfortunately, not be replicated and the phones though sturdy, failed to impress on many counts.

HMD Global Oy is a Finish company led by Nokia veteran Arto Nummela, who is expected to launch the first Nokia smartphone early next year featuring Google’s Android mobile operating system. The reason is that Microsoft hasn’t been investing much in this brand in recent years, so the smartphones’ price tag was around $20, ten times less than the average price of a smartphone manufactured by any other brand. Nokia has already waded into the Android territory with the N1 tablet and HMD will be looking to use that experience to make up for lost time.

Nokia confirmed that its feature phones (basic phones) will be continued with HDM marketing as part of its integrated portfolio. While Nokia is not an investor in HMD, it does have representation on the HMD board, and will receive royalty on every Nokia-branded device that the company sells. Unfortunately, the companywas unable to see growth potential in smartphones and planned to switch on to Microsoft’s unpopular mobile operating system (OS), Windows, for its “Lumia” smartphones, which ultimately caused its demise in the long run. A Nokia smartphone is sure to garner a fair amount of attention within the Android community, but it’s entering an extremely crowded and competitive market.

Nokia has remained a big force in telecoms infrastructure after the sale of the mobile unit – has licensed the Nokia brand them to play with. Considering how well the Pixel devices were accepted, it seems that the Nokia brand will be successful in penetrating the market once again. Foxconn will manufacture the Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets.

HMD said it plans to introduce new Nokia Android smartphones in the first half of 2017. HMD will also work with Google according to its strategic partnership model.

Earlier this year, Microsoft sold the feature phone business to HMD Global and contract manufacturer Foxconn for Dollars 350 million. This is fair proof that the cellphone manufacturing industry is truly becoming cut-throat as makers jockey for position to get the largest customer share in sales.