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History of Nokia

Several years back, Microsoft reached a deal to get Nokia's fighting apparatus and services
business, and lately, its HERE mapping unit was sold by the Finnish company to several German carmakers.
It's true that Nokia had horrible last five years, but this does not take away the fact that it was this
very company that gave us some of the most memorable phones, and effectively defined the cellular
industry for over a decade prior.
In this specific article, we take a trip down memory lane to revisit Nokia's history, which - hold your
breath - spans a whopping 150 years.
Humble beginnings
While Nokia may remind most of just cellular phones, the company in fact started out as a paper
mill, which was created in 1865 by mining engineer Fredrik Idestam at the Tammerkoski Rapids in
southwestern Finland.
However, the name Nokia was not yet born. It was the place of his second factory - on the banks of
the Nokianvirta river - that inspired Idestam to name his business something which occurred in
1871, Nokia Ab. After around three decades, the organization also ventured into electricity
generation.
Meanwhile, Eduard Polon founded Finnish Rubber Works in 1898, and Finnish Cable Works was
created by Arvid Wickstrom in 1912. In 1918, Finnish Rubber Works acquired Nokia to secure use of
the latter's hydropower resources, and in 1922, the newly formed conglomerate also obtained
Finnish Cable Works.
While the three firms were collectively possessed, they continued to work alone until 1967, when
they were eventually merged and Nokia Corporation was born. The newly formed business largely
focused on four markets: paper, electronic equipment, rubber, and cable. It developed things like
TVs, car and bike tires, rubber footwear, toilet paper, communication cables, robotics, PCs, and
military gear, amongst others.
Portfolio growth
A few years after, Nokia launched the planet 's first international mobile system dubbed Nordic
Mobile Telephone network, which linked Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. It was followed by
the launching of the company's as well as world's first car phone dubbed.
In 1984, Nokia got Salora and switched the name of its own telecommunications unit to NokiaMobira Oy. The year also marked the launching of Mobira Talkman, that was advertised as one of
the first transportable mobiles. This means it could be used both in and from automobile, even
though it was still around 5kg.
Three years after, the company introduced its first compact cellphone called Mobira Cityman 900,
which was also the world's first hand-held mobile telephone. Despite weighing around 800g and
taking a cost of around $5,456, it sold like hot cakes.

The following year brought a rough phase for the business as it seen sharp drop in profits owing to
acute price competition in the consumer electronics markets, and its chairman Kari Kairamo
committed suicide reportedly because of pressure.
The newest leaders brought changes, breaking up the business into six units: telecommunications,
consumer electronics, cables and machines, data, mobile phones, and basic businesses, while
divesting other units like flooring, paper, rubber, and ventilation systems.
Transform in focus - mobile phones
In 1990's, Nokia's top leaders determined to focus solely on the telecommunications marketplace,
and in the very first few years of the decade, the business's info, power, telly, tire, and cable units
were sold off because of this.
In 1991, world's first GSM call was made from the then Finnish prime minister, Harri Holkeri. It was
made using Nokia gear. The next year, the business's first handheld GSM phone Nokia 1011 was
established.
The device might store 99 contact numbers and allegedly had a talk time of 90 minutes. It was
known as Mobira Cityman 2000.
A couple of years after, the company launched its 2100 series of phones, which were also the first to
feature the iconic Nokia Tune ringtone. Turned out to be a blockbuster with around 20 million
handsets sold worldwide . series while Nokia projected to sell 400,000 units, the
Nokia 9000 Communicator was found. The all-in-one cellphone, which carried a cost of $800,
permitted users to send facsimile emails, and browse internet, besides offering word processing and
spreadsheet capabilities. Even though the cellphone managed to create a committed following, it
absolutely wasn't commercially successful..
In the same year, the business also launched the Nokia 8110 slider phone. Nicknamed "banana
phone", the apparatus featured in the most popular 1999 science fiction action film The Matrix.
World leader
The stunning success of the 6100 collection of Nokia - the company sold nearly 41 million cellular
phones in 1998 - helped the company end up being the world's top cellular phone manufacturer
because year and surpass Motorola. It's worth mentioning the Nokia 6110 was the very first phone
that came with all the classic Snake game pre-installed.
Nokia's net sales rose over 50% year-on-year, operating profits shot up almost 75%, and stock price
sky-rocketed a whopping 220%, causing an increase of market capitalization to around $70 billion
from almost $21 billion.
The year 1998 also found the business establishing the Nokia 8810, its first cellphone without an
external antenna. The main was also one of the Nokia's first phones with slider shell that is chrome.
The next year saw the business establishing the Nokia 3210. It was a solid handset that came in six
colour variants and had a talk time of the remarkable for the time 4- 5 hours.
As well as offering extra ringtones and games, the apparatus also allowed users to send pre-installed

graphic messages (such as Happy Birthday) via SMSs. Approximately 160 million units of the
handsets were sold, making it one of the successful and most popular cellphones in history.
The 2000s - a fresh era
The fresh decade brought along a fresh group of challenges for the firm, although Nokia was the
world leader in the mobile phones market. Internet technologies and the wireless were converging,
and also the 3rd generation of wireless technology - that assured increased multimedia ability - was
evolving.
Reacting to the changes, the Finnish business started churning out both sophisticated multimedia
handsets as well as low-end devices. The year 2001 saw the firm launching the Nokia 7650, it's first
phone to feature a built-in camera. It was likewise the first to sport the full colour screen.
This was followed by the launching of its (in addition to the world's) first 3G phone, the Nokia 6650,
in 2002.
The company also launched the Nokia 3650, the initial Symbian Series 60 device to appear in the US
marketplace, the exact same year. It was also Nokia's first phone.
In 2003, the business launched the Nokia 1100, a budget-friendly phone that sold around a
whopping 250 million units, making it the best selling mobile and also the most popular consumer
electronics product in the world. By The Way, it was additionally the billionth mobile sold later in
2005 of the company.
The year 2003 also saw the launch of the firm's unorthodox-appearing N-Gage device. Running
Symbian OS 6.1 (Series 60), the mobile/hand held gaming system was not considerably successful
commercially as only 3 million units were sold.
The next year, the Nokia 7280 "lipstick" cellphone was found. A part of the firm's "Vogue Mobile"
line, the apparatus was listed as among the very best products of the year by Fortune Magazine.
The business started its N series of phones, with the N70, N90, and N91 being the first members of
the chain. The flagship N8 was found later in 2010.
As the company managed to sell 8 million units of the unit around, it was successful, but it did not
manage to create die-hard following as it touch-encounter was subpar.
Early hiccups along with the legendary drop
It was the year 2001, when the profits of Nokia crumbled after becoming the top mobile maker in
the world. This is primarily due to a slowdown in mobile phone market. That downfall turned out to
be short-lived, but three years later, in 2004, the organization reported that it's market share is
sliding, despite leading with the solid 35%.
What's even worse was that the batteries - which were produced between 2005- end and 2006 -end appeared in a broad selection of Nokia phones, which meant a sizable portion of the firm's device
portfolio was affected.
On the other hand, iPhone sales sky rocketed during precisely the same span by around 330%.

2009 saw Nokia laying off 1,700 workers worldwide ., the year Later in the year, the Finnish firm
that was struggling finally acknowledged that it was slow to react to the change in the market, that
was being taken over by the likes of BlackBerry and Apple, and influenced by rookies like Samsung,
HTC, and LG.
The following year, Stephen Elop - who was formerly head of Microsoft's business software office was named as the new CEO of Nokia. He was also the very first non-Finnish leader of the firm.
Although 2010 found a rise in profits for the firm, job reductions continued.
Elop became renowned for an address that he presented to Nokia employees in early 2011, wherein
he compared the business's market position to a guy standing on a "burning stage." Quite
apparently, the firm's situation was going from bad to worse.
Determined compete with adversaries and better to come from the catastrophe that was continuing,
Nokia announced a strategic partnership to make the Windows Phone of the latter its primary
mobile OS.
Following the statement, there were rumors that Microsoft is in talks to acquire the fighting Finnish
giant. Yet, at that point in time, Elop rubbished them as "baseless." Meanwhile, Apple overtook
Nokia in smartphone sales in Q2, 2011.
The first fruit the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia bore were the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710
smartphones, which were declared after in 2011.
Although by selling over a million units of these devices in only a few months, the company was able
to overcome market expectations, job reductions continued. Meanwhile, within an effort to save
more expenses, the company also declared that it's going to shut its earliest factory in Finland and
change its manufacturing to Asia, which Technology Insider had become its biggest market by then all of this happened in early 2012.
It was followed by another round of job reductions, changing around 10,000 workers this time.
Later that year, the organization established Windows Cellphone 8-powered Lumia 920 flagship,
which received mixed reviews - largely criticized for its large size and bulkiness. The smartphone
became best selling mobile of the week on Amazon, and also topped Expansys' chart in britain
during exactly the same interval - it never reached the hit sales the firm needed to come back to
profitability.
Nevertheless, earnings fell significantly owing to the failure to make any dent in the smartphone
marketplace of the business.
In September that year, Nokia announced it is selling its Devices & Services office to Microsoft.
The sale officially finished in April 2014.
Judgment
The Finnish company's unwillingness to embrace drastic change when it was needed the most was
probably the greatest reason that brought the mobile giant down. The company took way too much
time to adopt the revolution that was smartphone and when it finally did it made way way too many
mistakes in its strategy.

First, Nokia tried to compete by simply adding touch to the heritage Symbian - a patch that didn't
produce the fluid user experience of its competitions at that time. Afterward the substitution to
Windows Phone was pronounced way before there was genuine hardware ready - a move that
programmer interest will be boosted by Elop expected, but ended up largely Symbian sales that was
killing 7 months before Nokia had an alternative to offer. Two mistakes of this magnitude, along with
the delay that is great in leaping to touchscreen were enough to cost the company's dominant
position in the market that is fast moving.
Nonetheless, that doesn't take away the fact that Nokia remains a tremendous part.

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