Nokia is Poised for a Handset Comeback

Former mobile phone giant, Nokia of Finland, is getting ready for a comeback in the handset business. Right now the company is busy hiring people with software expertise. It is also testing several products and looking to find sales partners. The buzz is that Nokia is planning to return to the consumer tech and mobile phone industry after it had sold its handset business to Microsoft a few years back.

Target – 2016

When Nokia sold its handset business to Microsoft in 2013, a non-compete deal was included in the sales contract. That deal is set to expire in the latter part of 2016 and the company is now preparing for it. It had already started to test the consumer market in January by launching its Android-operating N1 tablet in China. A few days ago it had launched a “virtual-reality camera” and had also released an Android app, the Z Launcher, a content organizer for smartphones.

Hiring Android experts

Nokia’s technologies division is advertising several jobs in California for product development, particularly engineers who are experts in Android operating system. The prior planned lay off of around 70 personnel at the technologies division has been reduced by half.

They are keeping a very tight lid on their plans, only saying that they are designing new products. However, going back to the mobile phone business would not be easy. Still, Nokia is a company that has one of the industry’s biggest number of intellectual properties and patents.

New acquisition

A fresh wave of talents is expected when Nokia completes its purchase of Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs, which is worth $17 billion. The firm is a research center, whose scientists have won the Nobel Prize eight times.

At the moment, Nokia is focusing on brand-licensing agreements, with Nokia manufacturing the phones that will carry the Nokia brand, but will only receive royalties. It might be less profitable, but it involves lower risks as well.

Industry analysts are saying that brand licensing is not a new industry model. Alcatel and Philips have done the same in consumer electronics, but Nokia will be facing tough competition, since there are many newcomers that have entered the market such as Micromax from India and Xiaomi from China. Nokia will have to offer something different to attract the attention of fickle smartphone consumers.

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