History of Nokia

A couple of years back, Microsoft reached a deal to acquire services business and Nokia's fighting
devices, and just lately, the Finnish company sold its HERE mapping unit to a group of German carmakers.
It is true that Nokia had horrible last five years, but this does not take away the fact that it was this
very business that gave us some of the phones that are most memorable, and efficiently defined the
mobile sector for over a decade prior.
In this short article, we take a trip down memory lane to revisit Nokia's history, which - hold your
breath - spans a whopping 150 years.
Modest starts
While Nokia may remind most of us of only cellular phones, the business in fact started out as a
paper mill, that was created in 1865 by mining engineer Fredrik Idestam at the Tammerkoski Rapids
in south western Finland.
However, the name Nokia was not yet produced. It was the location of his second mill - on the banks
of the Nokianvirta river - Idestam inspired to name his company Nokia Ab, something which
happened in 1871. After around three decades, the business ventured into electricity generation.
Meanwhile, Eduard Polon founded Finnish Rubber Works and Finnish Cable Works was created by
Arvid Wickstrom in 1912. In 1918, Finnish Rubber Works got Nokia to secure access to the latter's
hydropower resources, and in 1922, Finnish Cable Works was also obtained by the conglomerate
that was recently formed.
While the three companies were jointly possessed, they continued to work independently until 1967,
Nokia Corporation was created and when they were eventually united. The newly formed business
largely focused on four markets: paper, electronics, rubber, and cable. It developed things like PCs,
car and bike tires, rubber footwear, TVs, communication cables, robotics, toilet paper, and military
equipment, among others.
Portfolio expansion
In 1979, Nokia entered into a joint venture with leading Scandinavian color TV manufacturer Salora
to create Mobira Oy, a radio telephone company. Several years afterwards, Nokia launched the first
international mobile system dubbed Nordic Mobile Telephone network, which linked Finland, and
Sweden, Denmark, Norway in the world's. This is followed by the launch of the firm's as good as
world's first car-phone dubbed Mobira Senator, which weighed in at around 10 kg.
In 1984, Nokia acquired Salora and changed the name of its own telecommunications unit to NokiaMobira Oy. The year also marked the launching of Mobira Talkman, which was advertised as one of
the first transportable cellphones. This means it could be utilized both in and from car, even though
it was around 5kg.
3 years later, the organization introduced its first compact phone called Mobira Cityman 900, that
has been also the entire world's first hand held mobile telephone. Despite weighing around 800g and

carrying a price of around $5,456, it sold like hot cakes.

The cellphone became iconic and was nicknamed "The Gorba" after the then Soviet Union president
Mikhail Gorbachev used it to to make a call from Helsinki to Moscow during a press conference in
October 1987.
The next year brought a period that was rough for the organization as it witnessed sharp fall in gains
owing to severe price competition in the consumer electronics markets, and its own chairman Kari
Kairamo committed suicide reportedly because of stress.
The brand new leadership brought changes, splitting the organization into six units: mobile phones,
consumer electronics, cables and machines, info, telecommunications, and essential businesses,
while divesting other units.
In 1990's, the top leadership of Nokia chose to focus solely on the telecommunications marketplace,
and in the very first couple of years of the decade, the business's info, power, tv, tire, and cable units
were sold off as a consequence.
In 1991, world's first GSM call was made from the Finnish prime minister, Harri Holkeri. It had been
made using Nokia gear. The following year, the firm's first hand held GSM mobile Nokia 1011 was
found.
The apparatus apparently had a talk time of 90 minutes and will save 99 contact numbers. It was
also called Mobira Cityman 2000.
A couple of years later, the company found its 2100 chain of cellphones, which were also the first to
feature the iconic Nokia Tune ringtone.
Nokia 9000 Communicator was started. The all-in-one phone, which carried a cost of $800,
permitted users to send fax e-mails, and browse internet, besides offering word processing and
spreadsheet capabilities. Even though the phone managed to make a dedicated following, it had
been not commercially successful..
In the same year, the business also launched the Nokia 8110 slider phone. Nicknamed "banana
phone", the device featured in the most popular 1999 science fiction action film The Matrix.
World leader
The stunning success of the 6100 series of Nokia - the business sold almost 41 million cellular
phones in 1998 - helped the company become the world's top cellular phone maker in that year and
surpass Motorola. It's worth saying that the Nokia 6110 was the very first phone that came with the
classic Snake game pre-installed.
Nokia's net sales increased over 50% year-on-year, operating profits shot up nearly 75%, and stock
price sky rocketed a whopping 220%, causing an increase of market capitalization to around $70
billion from nearly $21 billion.
The year 1998 also found the business found the Nokia 8810, its first mobile without an outside
antenna. The main was also among the first phones of the Nokia with chrome slider shell.
The next year saw the business found the Nokia 3210.

In addition to offering additional ringtones and games, the device also enabled users to send preinstalled graphic messages (such as Happy Birthday) via SMSs. Around 160 million units of the
handsets were sold, making it one of the successful and most popular phones ever.
The 2000s - a fresh age
The wireless and Internet technologies were converging, and also the 3rd generation of wireless
technology - that assured increased multimedia capability - was evolving.
Responding to the changes, the Finnish business began churning out both sophisticated multimedia
handsets together with low-end devices. The year 2001 saw the business launching the Nokia 7650,
it's first phone to feature a built in camera. It was likewise the first to sport a colour display that is
full.
It was followed by the launching of its (together with the world's) first 3G phone, the Nokia 6650, in
2002.
The company also established the Nokia 3650, the very first Symbian Series 60 device to appear in
the US marketplace, the exact same year. It was Nokia's first phone.
Incidentally, it was also the billionth mobile sold later in 2005 of the company.
The year 2003 also saw the launching of the business's unorthodox-seeming N-Gage device. Running
Symbian OS 6.1 (Series 60), the cellphone/hand held gaming system wasn't considerably successful
commercially as just 3 million units were sold.
The following year, the Nokia 7280 "lipstick" cellphone was launched. Element of the firm's "Fashion
Mobile" line, the device was recorded as truly one of the best products of the year by Fortune
Magazine.
Midway through the decade, the business found its N-series of phones, with N91, N90, and the N70
being the first members of the string. The main N8 was launched after in 2010.
It was successful as the company was able to sell around 8 million units of the device, but it didn't
manage to create die hard following as it touch-encounter was sub par.
Hiccups and the epic drop
It was the year 2001, after becoming the top phone maker in the world when Nokia's profits first
crumbled. This is mostly a result of a slowdown in cell phone market. That downfall turned out to be
short-lived, but in 2004, the company reported that it's market share is falling, despite leading with
all the solid 35% three years after.
Another hiccup came in 2007, when the business had to recall a whopping 46 million defective cell
phone batteries. What's even worse was the batteries - which were produced between 2005- 2006
and ending -ending - seemed in a wide variety of Nokia cellphones, which meant a big part of the
firm's device portfolio was changed.
In 2008 - the same year when the Android version 1.0 was launched - Nokia's Q3 profits nosedived
30%, while revenue decreased 3.1%. IPhone sales sky rocketed during exactly the same period.

The year 2009 saw Nokia laying off 1,700 workers globally . Later in the year, the Finnish business
that was fighting finally acknowledged that it was slow to respond to the change in the market,
which influenced by novices like Samsung, HTC, and LG, and was being taken over by the likes of
BlackBerry and Apple.
The following year, Stephen Elop - who was formerly head of Microsoft's business software
department - was named as Nokia's new CEO. He was also the very first non-Finnish leader of the
organization. Job reductions continued, although 2010 saw a rise in profits for the business.
Elop became famed for a speech which he delivered to Nokia workers in early 2011, wherein he
compared the business's market position to a guy standing on a "burning stage." Quite obviously, the
situation of the business was going from bad to worse.
Desperate compete with opponents and better to come out of the continuing crisis, Nokia announced
a strategic partnership to make the latter's Windows Phone its primary mobile OS.
After the statement, there were rumors that Microsoft is in talks to acquire the fighting Finnish
giant. However, at that point in time, Elop rubbished them as "baseless."
The first fruit the partnership between Microsoft and Nokia bore were Lumia 710 smartphones and
the Lumia 800, which were announced after in 2011.
Though the business was able to beat market expectations by selling over a million units of the
devices in just a month or two, job reductions continued. Meanwhile, in an attempt to save more
expenses, the organization also declared that it is going to shut its earliest factory in Finland and
shift its production to Asia, which had become its biggest market by then - all of this occurred in
early 2012.
It was followed by another round of job reductions, changing around 10,000 workers this time.
Later that year, the organization launched Windows Cellphone 8-powered Lumia 920 flagship, which
received mixed reviews - bulkiness and mainly criticized for its big size. The smartphone became
best selling phone of the week on Amazon, and also topped Expansys' chart during exactly the same
interval in britain - it never reached the blockbuster sales the firm needed to come back to
profitability.
Eventually, the year 2013 brought some good news as Nokia returned to profit six quarters of
bleeding money. Nonetheless, earnings dropped drastically owing to the business's failure to
produce any dent in the smartphone market.
In September that year, Nokia announced it's selling its Devices & Services division to Microsoft.
The deal, which saw CEO Stephen Elop return to Microsoft, additionally comprised mapping services
and the Finnish company's patents, although it excluded the Masan factory in South Korea as well as
the Nokia's Chennai factory in India. The sale formally finished in April 2014.
Conclusion
The Finnish firm's unwillingness to embrace extreme change when it was demanded the most was
likely the biggest reason that brought down the mobile giant. The organization took way too long
when it finally did it made way way too many mistakes in its strategy and to adopt the revolution

that was smartphone.

First, Nokia attempted to compete by adding touch to the legacy Symbian - a patch that did not
produce the fluid user experience of its competitors at the time. Then the switch to Windows
Technology Insider Phone was pronounced way before there was genuine hardware prepared - a
move that Elop trusted will boost developer interest, but ended up largely killing Symbian sales 7
months before Nokia had an option to offer. Two errors of this magnitude, with the delay that is
great in jumping to touchscreen were enough to cost the business 's dominant position in the market
that is quickly moving.
Anyway, as the saying goes, nothing is permanent and whatever goes up must come down. Yet, that
does not take away the fact that Nokia stays a tremendous part of mobile phone history that will
never be forgotten.