Nokia has been the number one cellphone manufacturer back in the day. Some of the company’s old cellphones are still very well-known, people tend to mention the Nokia 3310 and the great build of that handset to this day, and it has been 16 years since Nokia introduced that cellphone. Nokia didn’t really adapt to the smartphone world in time, they made quite a few mistakes along the way (including an exclusivity agreement with Microsoft) which resulted in serious financial losses, so the company was basically forced to sell their Devices and Services businesses to Microsoft.
This almost destroyed the company, but Nokia managed to get back on their feet, at least to an extent. The company has introduced the Nokia N1 Android-powered tablet back in 2014, and has to this day worked hard in order to grow. This Finland-based company has acquired Alcatel-Lucent, and has sold Nokia HERE Maps in the meantime. There were tons of rumors out there saying that Nokia plans to re-enter the smartphone world, and the company did throw a few hints our way last year when they said they don’t have an official partner to even consider manufacturing smartphones, but nothing was officially confirmed, until now. First and foremost, let me say that the company was actually forbidden to make smartphone until this year, as per their agreement with Microsoft. That being said, the company’s CEO, Rajeev Suri, has said that Nokia has no intention of making a department inside of the company similar to the one they sold to Microsoft. He did say the following though: “We don’t want to just put logos on somebody’s devices. It needs to feel like Nokia, what Nokia was known for”. He has also said that they’re not in a hurry to manufacture smartphones, and along with that, he said that they might manufacture a smartphone this year, but on the other hand, it might even happen later on.
So, as you can see, Nokia certainly has plans to release a new smartphone, but that won’t happen that soon. It seems like they haven’t even started working on the device just yet, so even if they do release it this year, we won’t see it until the second half of the year. It is quite probable, however, that if they do release a smartphone, that it will ship with Android OS. That’s pretty much it, stay tuned for additional news, we’ll report back as soon as Nokia releases more info.