The Nokia brand ruled the phone market for decades, until Steve Jobs brilliantly disrupted the status quo with the iPhone and the open-ended world of apps. Unable to match the iPhone and beset by a wave of cheap competitors from Asia, Nokia quickly slid into oblivion.
Now Nokia is trying for a comeback. Well, not Nokia exactly. The former top phone maker sold its phone business to , which has all but shut it down. It kept some brand rights, which it licensed last year to a Finnish startup called HMD Global.
On Sunday in Barcelona, HMD announced a slate of low-cost new phones that will be sold under the Nokia brand. The company, run by a cast of former Nokia executives, is clearly counting on some untapped nostalgic market demand for the old Nokia brand.
HMD to put “a true Nokia soul in our devices--you will sense it,” CEO Arto Nummela announced at a packed press conference ahead of the Mobile World Conference industry gathering.
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The new phone line starts with the previously announced Nokia 6 with a 5.5-inch screen and selling for 229 euros, or about $242. A slightly smaller Nokia 5, with a 5.2-inch screen, goes for 189 euros, or $200, and 5-inch model called the Nokia 3 will sell for just 139 euros or under $150. All three models rely on Google’s Android software. None will be available in the United States immediately, though one HMD official said that would happen later in the year.
Aside from the industry standard smartphones, the real attention grabber at Saturday’s event was a refreshed, updated dumb phone, a new version of Nokia’s 3310 phone. Looking quite like the original issued in 2000, the new 3310 has the same old-fashioned keypad and comes in a couple of bright plastic-y colors. A small color screen and potentially weeks of battery life round out the 49 euro ($52) device.
Nokia said its initial run of the 6 model offered in China had sold out in 23 seconds, with a large majority of buyers new to the Nokia brand. The quick sell out could reflect limited manufacturing as much as the popularity of the new model. But HMD should have more stock on hand for the new phones, and now the 6 also, as they will be available in most of the world in the second quarter.
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This being the modern, global phone economy, HMD doesn’t actually make any of the new phones either. That task falls to Foxconn, the Chinese outsourced manufacturer that also makes Apple’s iPhone. In addition to the brand license deal with Nokia, Foxconn and HMD paid $350 million to Microsoft last May for the assets to manufacture Nokia phones.