Nokia sold its mobile division to Microsoft sometime back and the agreement stipulated that Nokia was not to re-enter the smartphone market until late 2016. Well, 2016 has already started and we expect to see Nokia back on the smartphone space anytime soon. We have been hearing about this for a while now and we know that the company will be back with Android powered smartphones within the next year or so.
Nokia has been preparing for the re-launch of its smartphones with the sale of Here Maps and subsequent acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. The company had previously said that when it re-enters the smartphone market, it will not be the same mobile unit it sold to Microsoft.
The company has indicated that it has plans to outsource its manufacturing and marketing of intelligent handsets to a third party firm while the company concentrates on building the brand and design. This will give the company enough room to scale and hopefully reduce costs. Even with this strategy, the company will not be another generic brand that throws its logos on someone else’s devices. “We don’t want to just put logos on somebody’s devices. It needs to feel like Nokia, what Nokia was known for,” said the CEO.
The company has still not publicly said which companies it will be partnering with and this doesn’t scare them at all. Nokia’s CEO said, “We’re not in a hurry. There doesn’t need to be a rush.” He went ahead to say that Nokia has a 10-year plan that it developed back in 2014 and so they clearly know what they are doing.
With this kind of talk, am not expecting to see any Nokia branded smartphone this year, probably we are looking at early 2017 for the launch of the first Nokia smartphone running Android.
Read More: Nokia Is Already Working On Three Android Smartphones to Be Unveiled Later This Year