Related News
Microsoft buys Nokia phone unit for US$7.2b
Print Edition
Two years after hitching its fate to Microsoft’s Windows Phone software, Nokia collapsed into the arms of the US software giant yesterday, agreeing to sell its main handset business for 5.44 billion euros (US$7.2 billion).
Nokia, which will continue to make networking equipment and hold patents, was once the world’s dominant handset maker but was long since overtaken by Apple and Samsung in the highly competitive market for more powerful smartphones.
Nokia’s Canadian boss Stephen Elop, who ran Microsoft’s business software division before jumping to Nokia in 2010, will return to the US firm as head of its mobile devices business — a Trojan horse, according to disgruntled Finnish media.
He is being discussed as a possible replacement for Microsoft’s retiring CEO Steve Ballmer, who is trying to remake the US firm into a gadget and services company like Apple before he departs, though it has fallen short so far in its attempts to compete in mobile devices.
“It’s very clear to me that rationally this is the right step going forward,” Elop told reporters, though he added he also felt “a great deal of sadness” over the outcome.
Sinking feeling
In three years under Elop, Nokia saw its market share collapse and its share price shrivel.
In 2011, after writing a memo that said Nokia was falling behind and lacked the in-house technology to catch up, Elop made the controversial decision to use his former firm Microsoft’s Windows Phone for smartphones, rather than Nokia’s own software or Google’s ubiquitous Android operating system.
Nokia, which had a 40 percent share of the handset market in 2007, now has a mere 15 percent share, with an even smaller 3 percent in smartphones.
Shares in Nokia surged more than 40 percent yesterday as investors who had borrowed and sold the stock to bet on further price falls rushed to buy back to limit their losses.
After yesterday’s gains the whole company is worth about 15 billion euros, a far cry from its glory days, when it peaked at more than 200 billion euros.
The sale of the handset business is not the first dramatic turn in the 148-year history of a company that has sold everything from television sets to rubber boots, but it was taken as a hard blow in its native Finland.
For many Finns, the fact that a former Microsoft executive had come to Nokia, bet the firm’s future on an alliance with Microsoft, laid off tens of thousands and then sent it into Microsoft’s hands, was a galling snub to national pride.
Finns’ emotional link
“(Elop’s predecessor) Jorma Ollila brought a Trojan horse to Nokia,” widely read tabloid Ilta-Sanoma declared in a column. Ollila built Nokia into a global powerhouse but was blamed for being late to recognize the threat of Apple’s iPhone and the smartphone revolution.
“As a Finnish person, I cannot like this deal. It ends one chapter in this Nokia story,” said Juha Varis, Danske Capital’s senior portfolio manager, whose fund owns Nokia shares. “On the other hand, it was maybe the last opportunity to sell it.”
Varis was one of many investors critical of Elop’s decision to bet Nokia’s future in smartphones on Microsoft’s Windows Phone software, which was praised by tech reviewers but hasn’t found the momentum to challenge the market leaders.
“So this is the outcome: the whole business for 5 billion euros. That’s peanuts compared to its history,” he said.
Alexander Stubb, Finland’s Minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade, said on his Twitter account: “For a lot of us Finns, including myself, Nokia phones are part of what we grew up with. Many first reactions to the deal will be emotional.”
Nokia said about 32,000 people of its roughly 90,000 worldwide staff would transfer to Microsoft, including about 4,700 who will transfer in Finland.
Nokia in China
1985
Beijing Representative Office is set up.
1994
Nokia supplies the Chinese mainland’s first GSM system to the Beijing Telecommunications Bureau. Wu Jichuan, minister of the then Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, makes China’s first GSM call with a Nokia 2110.
1995
Nokia (China) Investment Co and Nokia’s Shanghai Representative Office are set up.
Nokia establishes its first major GSM system and terminal manufacturing joint venture in China.
1998
China’s first Chinese SMS is sent with a Nokia 6150.
1999
Nokia provides the first Asian GPRS network system to Taiwan.
2000
Nokia’s Xingwang (International) Industrial Park breaks ground in Beijing.
2002
Nokia launches its first camera phone in China, the Nokia 7650.
2003
Nokia launches China’s first video phone, the Nokia 3650.
2004
Nokia launches its first mega-pixel camera phone in China, the Nokia 7610.
2005
China becomes the largest market for Nokia globally.
2007
Nokia launches the N95.
Nokia opens its Nokia Flagship Store in Shanghai, its largest in the world.
Nokia Siemens Networks is set up.
2008
Nokia Growth Partners, a global venture capital management fund, begins operation in China.
The Nokia E71 becomes one of the most popular mobile phones in China.
2009
The number of Nokia users in China reaches the 200 million mark.
Nokia launches Ovi Store Beta.
2010
Nokia and China Mobile launch MM-Ovi Store, the first joint mobile application store in China.
2011
Nokia announces new strategy to switch to Microsoft system.
Nokia’s two manufacturing factories in China (in Dongguan and Beijing) reach 1.1-billion-phone production milestones.
2013
Microsoft announces to acquire Nokia’s device and service unit.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
