Nokia phones

The Finnish company Nokia is one of the oldest brands in the telecommunications industry. The company has been around since 1871, but it didn’t start manufacturing cell phones until 1982. It would eventually grow to become the world’s largest cell phone manufacturer. However, today’s Nokia is no longer what it used to be—but for a different reason than you might think.

Snake

When you say Nokia, you think Snake! For those who sometimes still long for the good old days, you can play the game below again. Can you beat your old high score?

Nokia History

Nokia was founded in 1871 by Fredrik Idestam and Leo Mechelin in the Finnish village of Nokia. The company has a rich history of business activities ranging from wood pulp, car tires, cables, electronics, and even gas masks. In 1977, under the leadership of CEO Kari Kairamo, Nokia decided to focus exclusively on consumer electronics. After several acquisitions, Nokia shifted its focus to products such as computers, televisions, and cell phones. The company was highly successful in this area; at one point, Nokia was the third-largest TV manufacturer in Europe. But Nokia truly became a major player after it decided in 1992 to focus exclusively on telecommunications.

The rise of the GSM network would lead to staggering sales figures for Nokia phones. In the “Top 10 Best-Selling Phones” of all time, Nokia occupies no fewer than 7 spots. The number 1 model, the Nokia 1110, sold a staggering 250 million units. The company also enjoyed success in the smartphone industry with the N-series, which was primarily praised for its camera features.

However, the Symbian platform proved no match for touchscreen iPhones and low-cost Android smartphones. Sales went into a free fall starting in 2009, after which, under the leadership of former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop, the company shifted its focus entirely to Windows Phone in 2011. This would later prove to be a strategic mistake. Starting in 2011, the company posted loss after loss due to a lack of success and the loss of Symbian customers. To stay afloat, it saw no other option in 2013 but to sell its entire phone division to Microsoft. The company would never again release its own Nokia phone and began to focus primarily on selling network equipment for the telecom market.

Microsoft, too, did little with the acquired Nokia division. It laid off the 7,800 employees it had taken over, wrote off $7.6 billion, and halted development of Windows Phone / 10 Mobile. Microsoft sold the rights to manufacture phones under the Nokia brand to the Finnish company HMD Global. These phones are manufactured by the Chinese company Foxconn and bear the Nokia name, but they are not designed, manufactured, or sold by Nokia.

HMD Global

HMD Global was founded in 2016 by former Nokia executives and released its first Nokia-branded phone in 2017. The company focuses primarily on Google’s Android One platform, which allows it to release updates quickly and support phones for a long time. This approach is appreciated by consumers, as Nokia finally made it back onto the “Top 10 Best-Selling Phone Brands” list in 2018. This is remarkable for a company that almost no one recognizes by its own name.

Android One

The current Nokia phones available in stores run Android One. This is a pure version of Android that must meet strict standards set by Google. As a result, smartphones with Android One can receive updates quickly and feel almost identical to one another because they don’t use a so-called skin (also known as an interface). HMD Global’s models stand out in terms of price point and camera features. The company was one of the first to release premium, high-end Android One models and continues the long-standing Nokia partnership with the German company Carl Zeiss.

Nokia icons

Chances are your first cell phone was a Nokia. The company sold billions of devices, and some models became true icons. Take the Nokia 3310, for example, of which an estimated 126 million units were sold. The simple model was virtually indestructible and featured the popular game Snake. HMD Global even released a remake of it in 2017.

Other notable icons include the 1996 Communicator, considered one of the first smartphones, and the Nokia 8110, which, with its slide mechanism, appeared in the movie *The Matrix*. The company was also known for experimenting with unusual designs, such as the rotating 3250, the buttonless 7280, the flip-keyboard 6810, the 3650 with its round keypad, and the F1-style 3300.

At its peak, however, it was the models from the multimedia N-series and business-oriented E-series that stole the show. The N95 and E71 flew off the shelves. Nokia also made quite a splash for a while with its N-Gage models, which were primarily geared toward gaming.