By Eric Auchard and Jussi Rosendahl

FRANKFURT/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia smartphones are poised for a comeback after former managers at the Finnish company licensed the handset brand from Microsoft and struck up partnerships with Google and phone manufacturer Foxconn.

Nokia was once the world's dominant cellphone maker but missed the shift to smartphones and then chose Microsoft's unpopular Windows operating system for its "Lumia" range.

Nokia quit smartphones in 2014 by selling its handset activities to Microsoft to focus on mobile network equipment. Microsoft continued selling Lumia smartphones under its own name but this year largely abandoned that business, too.

HMD Global, led by Nokia veteran Arto Nummela, wants to launch its first Nokia smartphone in the early part of next year using Google's (GOOGL.O) Android operating system.

Success will require a dash for scale by stealing business from Apple (AAPL.O), Samsung <005930.KS> and dozens of other players in a cut-throat industry.

"Consumers may be carrying different smartphones now, but are they really in love and loyal to those brands?" said Nummela in an interview.

The Nokia consumer brand lives on as the badge on cheaper, entry-level "feature phones" sold mainly in Asia, India and Eastern Europe, though Microsoft invested little to market the name in recent years. Smartphones typically cost anywhere from ten to 30 times as much as these basic phones, which sell for as little as $20.

"For a new entrant, having an established brand provides it with an instant on-ramp," said mobile phone analyst Ben Wood of CCS Insight, who suggested that phone vendors with weaker brands should not take the new challenge lightly.

"The barriers to entry for the Android phone space are low," said Wood. "What HMD has is the Nokia brand and management experience. The key to its success will be driving scale."

CEO Nummela, who was once responsible for Nokia's sales and product development, does not lack ambition.

"We want to be one of the key competitive players in the smartphone business," he told Reuters.

HMD President Florian Seiche previously worked at Siemens (SIEGn.DE), Orange, HTC and Nokia. Chief Marketing Officer Pekka Rantala is a former CEO of Rovio, the maker of the Angry Birds game, as well as a Nokia veteran.

"We are not going to skip any markets in the long term," Seiche said, adding that HMD had already set up offices in 40 locations around the world.

NO FUNDING FROM NOKIA CORP

HMD is owned by Smart Connect LP, a private equity fund run by Jean-Francois Baril, who was once in charge of Nokia's world-leading supply chain management system. Other HMD managers have put in money of their own.

HMD on Thursday took over the feature phone business that Nokia Corp (NOKIA.HE) sold to Microsoft. It has a licensing deal with Nokia giving it sole use of the brand on mobile phones and tablets for the next decade. It will pay Nokia royalties for the brand and patents, but Nokia has no direct investment in HMD.

HMD is building its smartphone operating system in partnership with Google and all its Nokia devices will be manufactured by Foxconn (2354.TW) of Taiwan, the world's largest contract manufacturer.

Nummela says his team's enduring relationships with phone service providers and retailers could help HMD quickly convince owners of Nokia feature phones to upgrade in markets like India, Indonesia and Russia.

The Nokia name is still on a tenth of the feature phones sold around the world, though in recent years it ceded ground to Samsung and TCL <000100.SZ>, maker of Alcatel-brand phones, as well as smaller players, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics.

Shipments of Nokia feature phones plunged 40 percent in fiscal year 2015 and HMD must reverse that decline while trying to break back into the smartphone market, where hundreds of vendors compete by selling phones that can be hard to distinguish.

"The feature phone is the essence of the business," Wood said. "Don't be under any illusions that this market is over."

Lalasticlala wunt u wanna change dat ur Sagem MyX55 to Nokia

Source:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/tech/nokia-branded-phones-set-comeback-2017-hmd-takes-101941077--finance.html?client=ms-opera-mobile&espv=1

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Go nokia go

Not being a pessimist but this project just seems like it is set to fail. Prove me wrong please. . . A Nokia that was a market leader but saw Symbian + a restrictive Microsoft OS as the way to go now wants to switch to Google OS.

Loyalty is what made their customers patronise them even when it was obvious they were failing and now they still want to buy such gimmick. Most people just need a functional OS with good hardware. Not sure the branding plays a lot, particularly in this part of the world.

Truth be told, if they succeed in producing high end phones with good battery, like we know them for, a lot of people will push for it, solve one android problem and see profit. Go NOKIA

Mustay:
Not being a pessimist but this project just seems like it is set to fail. Prove me wrong please. . . A Nokia that was a market leader but saw Symbian + a restrictive Microsoft OS as the way to go now wants to switch to Google OS.

Loyalty is what made their customers patronise them even when it was obvious they were failing and now they still want to buy such gimmick. Most people just need a functional OS with good hardware. Not sure the branding plays a lot, particularly in this part of the world.

Trust me broda, Nokia will blow d market i knw alot of ppl who will drop all dis rampart chino phones as soon as nokia get into market, dere knwn fr qaulity (i.e u get d true value of ur money wit Nokia)

If wishes were horses

mattyboy007:

Trust me broda, Nokia will blow d market i knw alot of ppl who will drop all dis rampart chino phones as soon as nokia get into market, dere knwn fr qaulity (i.e u get d true value of ur money wit Nokia)

Yes but at what cost? Nokia was known to have expensive smartphones and their prices hardly dropped.

Mustay:

Yes but at what cost? Nokia was known to have expensive smartphones and their prices hardly dropped.

Wen u knw d qualityof wat ur buying cost count less

It's too late for them.

Revenge of the Fallen? Make Nokia jus kuku find something else do jor instead of to com allow these children in d fone market embarrass dem.. Their time don pass, except dey want to offer something completely different and cooler than android...

It's never late... People are wiser now, they Rather go for Quality and Value for money. If you don't know, Nokia are known for Quality for money. They should just Solve one or two problem in the ANDROID World and see how people become obssesed with their Brand again, as usual.
I Love My E5

Lemme help op supply pictures

@mattyboy007 you're right, that's why the market has different segments but you must remember that in this context, Nokia is trying to re-enter the market so the business strategy could make or mar them. HMD wants to leverage on Nokia's goodwill but time will tell whether that's enough to cover costs.

Mustay:
@mattyboy007 you're right, that's why the market has different segments but you must remember that in this context, Nokia is trying to re-enter the market so the business strategy could make or mar them. HMD wants to leverage on Nokia's goodwill but time will tell whether that's enough to cover costs.

Yea.. is wunt b easy fr dem to break d market bt i beliv dey can do well n far beta dan dem Tecno, infinix & co..

kenny091:
Lemme help op supply pictures

Boss tanx... Cums 2017 amma surely switch to nokia

lanre316:
It's too late for them.

Jst chill 2017 arent far u will live to witness dere break tru in d market

Nbote:
Revenge of the Fallen? Make Nokia jus kuku find something else do jor instead of to com allow these children in d fone market embarrass dem.. Their time don pass, except dey want to offer something completely different and cooler than android...

A proverb in Hausa says "jadabaya ba sorobane ama mugun sheri ne" ( moving backward no b fiar na degerous preparation) #not dat gud in Hausa mayb one aboki fit help translate am well#

mattyboy007:

Jst chill 2017 arent far u will live to witness dere break tru in d market

I wish them success too. Let's hope they find the winning strategy because other dominant players in the game won't just hand over their crown to Nokia that easily. Nokia would find it hard to penetrate even Nigerian market, with the likes of tecno holding the crown here and Samsung and others holding the crown internationally. Best of luck to them.

they should hurry up na, enough of all these MTK phones

Everyday we keep hearing that Nokia will produce this and that, we keep seeing leaked images of the anticipated phone, but nothing yet, I don't know if it's hard for them to produce a simple and high end android phone

Make these guys shift abeg. They had the mobile world in their grasp and threw it all away



Idiots

EniHolar:

Lol clown
Took me seconds to figure