Nokia

History

1865–1967

Nokia's history dates from 1865, when mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established a pulp mill on the shores of the Tammerkoski rapids near the town of Tampere, Finland (then a Grand Duchy under the Russian Empire's rule). A second pulp mill was opened in 1868 near the neighboring town of Nokia, where there were better hydropower resources. In 1871, Idestam, together with a friend Leo Mechelin, formed a shared company and called it Nokia Ab (in Swedish, Nokia Company being the English equivalent), after the site of the second pulp mill.

Idestam retired in 1896, making Mechelin the company's chairman; he expanded into electricity generation by 1902, which Idestam had opposed. In 1904, Suomen Gummitehdas (Finnish Rubber Works), a rubber business founded by Eduard Polón, established a factory near the town of Nokia and used its name.

In 1922, in the now independent Finland, Nokia Ab entered into a partnership with the Finnish Rubber Works and Kaapelitehdas (the Cable Factory), all now jointly under the leadership of Polón. The rubber company grew rapidly when it moved to the Nokia region in the 1930s to take advantage of the electricity supply, and the cable company soon did too.

Nokia at the time also made respirators for both civilian and military use, from the 1930s well into the early 1990s.

1967–1988

In 1967, the three companies – Nokia, Kaapelitehdas, and Finnish Rubber Works – merged to create a new Nokia Corporation, restructured into four major businesses: forestry, cable, rubber, and electronics. In the early 1970s, it entered the networking and radio industries. Nokia started making military equipment for Finland's defence forces (Puolustusvoimat), such as the Sanomalaite M/90 communicator in 1983, and the M61 gas mask first developed in the 1960s. Nokia was now also making professional mobile radios, telephone switches, capacitors and chemicals.

After Finland's trade agreement with the Soviet Union in the 1960s, Nokia expanded into the Soviet market. It soon widened trade, ranging from automatic telephone exchanges to robotics among others; by the late 1970s, the Soviet Union became a major market for Nokia, yielding high profits. The U.S. government became increasingly concerned of the possible export of items it deemed as high technology, such as digital telephone exchanges, to the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This led to Finland entering the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls in 1987. This was a demonstration of Finland balancing between both sides, as it was neutral during the Cold War.

In 1977, Kari Kairamo became CEO and transformed the company's businesses. By this time, Finland was becoming what has been called "Nordic Japan". Under his leadership, Nokia acquired many companies, including television maker Salora in 1984, followed by Swedish electronics and computer maker Luxor AB in 1985, and French television maker Oceanic in 1987. This made Nokia the third-largest television manufacturer of Europe (behind Philips and Thomson). The existing brands continued to be used until the end of the television business in 1996.

In 1979, in a joint venture with Salora Oy, Nokia established Mobira, a mobile radio telephone manufacturer that would go on to become the foundation of Nokia's mobile phone business.

In 1981, Mobira launched the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) service, the world's first international cellular network and the first to allow international roaming. In 1982, Mobira launched the Mobira Senator car phone, Nokia's first mobile phone. At that time, the company had no interest in producing mobile phones, which the executive board regarded as akin to James Bond's gadgets: improbably futuristic and niche devices.

1988–2010

Following Simo Vuorilehto's appointment as CEO, a major restructuring was planned. With 11 groups within the company, Vuorilehto divested industrial units he deemed as un-strategic. Nokian Tyres (Nokian Renkaat), a tyre producer originally formed as a division of Finnish Rubber Works in 1932, split away from Nokia Corporation in 1988. Two years later, in 1990, Finnish Rubber Works followed suit. In 1991, Nokia sold its computer division, Nokia Data, to UK-based International Computers Limited (ICL), the precursor of Fujitsu Siemens. Investors thought of this as financial trouble and Nokia's stock price sank as a result. Finland was now also experiencing its worst recession in living memory, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, a major customer, made matters worse.

Vuorilehto quit in January 1992 and was replaced by Jorma Ollila, who had been the head of the mobile phone business from 1990 and advised against selling that division. Ollila decided to turn Nokia into a "telecom-oriented" company, and he eventually got rid of divisions like the power business. This strategy proved to be very successful, and the company grew rapidly in the following years. Nokia's operating profit went from negative in 1991 to $1 billion in 1995 and almost $4 billion by 1999.

Nokia's first fully portable mobile phone after the Mobira Senator was the Mobira Cityman 900 in 1987. Nokia assisted in the development of the GSM mobile standard in the 1980s and developed the first GSM network with Siemens, the predecessor to Nokia Siemens Network. The world's first GSM call was made by Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri on 1 July 1991, using Nokia equipment on the 900 MHz band network built by Nokia and operated by Radiolinja. In November 1992, the Nokia 1011 launched, making it the first commercially available GSM mobile phone.

Salora Oy as a Nokia subsidiary ended in 1989 when the division was merged into Nokia-Mobira Oy. The brand continued to be used for televisions until 1995.

On 12 June 1996, Nokia announced the sale of its television business to Canada/Hong Kong-based Semi-Tech Corporation. The television manufacturing plant in Germany closed down in September 1996. The sale included a factory in Turku and the rights to use the Nokia, Finlux, Luxor, Salora, Schaub-Lorenz, and Oceanic brands until the end of 1999. Some of these brands were later sold to other companies.

2010–2014

In late 2009 and in 2010, the music-focused Xseries and consumer-focused Cseries were introduced respectively. In April 2010, Nokia introduced its next flagship mobile device, the Nokia N8, which would be the first to run on Symbian^3. However, it was delayed for many months which tarnished the company's image, especially after the failure of its previous flagship N97 and tougher competition from Apple and the rising Google. On 10 September 2010, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was fired as CEO and it was announced that Stephen Elop from Microsoft would take Nokia's CEO position, becoming the first non-Finnish director in Nokia's history. It was claimed that investors pressed Nokia's board to recruit an outsider to shake up management and break from the traditional "Nokia way". Ollila had also announced that he would step down as Nokia chairman by 2012. On 11 March 2011, Nokia announced that it had paid Elop a $6 million signing bonus as "compensation for lost income from his prior employer", on top of his $1.4 million annual salary.

The old Symbian OS became completely open-source in February 2010. However, in November 2010 it was announced that the Symbian Foundation was closing and that Nokia would take back control of the Symbian operating system under closed licensing. By now, Nokia was the only remaining company using the platform, along with carrier NTT Docomo in Japan, after both Samsung and Sony Ericsson moved to Android. Meanwhile, in 2010 for Nokia's Linux ambitions, Nokia collaborated with Intel to form the MeeGo project, after the merger of Nokia's own Maemo and Intel's Moblin.

Nokia's Symbian platform that had been the leading smartphone platform in Europe and Asia for many years was quickly becoming outdated and difficult for developers after the advent of iOS and Android. To counter this, Nokia planned to make its MeeGo Linux operating system, under development, the company's flagship on smartphones. Shortly after Elop's CEO tenure began, the Nokia board green-lit him the ability to change the company's mobile phones strategy, including changing operating systems. Veteran Anssi Vanjoki, head of the smartphones division, left the company around this time. His final appearance was at Nokia World 2010 when the Nokia E7-00 and other Symbian^3 devices were introduced.

On 11 February 2011, Nokia announced a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft, under which it would adopt Windows Phone 7 as its primary operating system on smartphones, and integrate its services and platforms with its own, including Bing as its default search engine, and integration of Nokia Maps data into Bing Maps. Elop stated that Nokia chose not to use Android because of an apparent inability to "differentiate" its offerings, with critics also noting that his past ties to Microsoft may have also influenced the decision. Although the MeeGo "Harmattan"-based N9 was met with a highly positive reception in 2011, Nokia had already decided to end development on MeeGo and solely focus on its Microsoft partnership, although the CEO said that the N9's "innovations" will live on in the future, which eventually made their way on the Asha platform in 2013. After the announcement of the Microsoft partnership, Nokia's market share deteriorated; this was due to demand for Symbian dropping when consumers realized Nokia's focus and attention would be elsewhere.

2014–2016

After the sale of its mobile devices division, Nokia focused on network equipment through Nokia Networks.

In October 2014, Nokia and China Mobile signed a US$970 million framework deal for delivery between 2014 and 2015.

On 17 November 2014, Nokia Technologies head Ramzi Haidamus disclosed that the company planned to re-enter the consumer electronics business as an original design manufacturer, licensing in-house hardware designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers. Haidamus stated that the Nokia brand was "valuable" but "is diminishing in value, and that's why it is important that we reverse that trend very quickly, imminently". The next day, Nokia unveiled the N1, an Android tablet manufactured by Foxconn, as its first product following the Microsoft sale. Haidamus emphasized that devices released under these licensing agreements would be held to high standards in production quality, and would "look and feel just like Nokia built it". Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri stated that the company planned to re-enter the mobile phone business in this manner in 2016, following the expiration of its non-compete clause with Microsoft.

According to Robert Morlino, the spokesman of Nokia Technologies, Nokia planned to follow the brand-licensing model rather than direct marketing of mobile devices due to the sale of its mobile devices division to Microsoft. The company took aggressive steps to revitalize itself, evident through its hiring of software experts, testing of new products and seeking of sales partners. On 14 July 2015, CEO Rajeev Suri confirmed that the company would make a return to the mobile phones market in 2016.

On 28 July 2015, Nokia announced OZO, a 360-degrees virtual reality camera, with eight 2K optical image sensors. The division behind the product, Nokia Technologies, claimed that OZO would be the most advanced VR film-making platform. Nokia's press release stated that OZO would be "the first in a planned portfolio of digital media solutions," with more technological products expected in the future. OZO was fully unveiled on 30 November in Los Angeles. The OZO, designed for professional use, was intended for retail for US$60,000; however, its price was decreased by $15,000 prior to release, and is listed on its official website as $40,000.

On 14 April 2015, Nokia confirmed that it was in talks with the French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel-Lucent regarding a potential merger. The next day, Nokia announced that it had agreed to purchase Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion in an all-stock deal. CEO Rajeev Suri felt that the purchase would give Nokia a strategic advantage in the development of 5G wireless technologies. The acquisition created a stronger competitor to the rival firms Ericsson and Huawei, whom Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent had surpassed in terms of total combined revenue in 2014. Nokia shareholders hold 66.5% of the new combined company, while Alcatel-Lucent shareholders hold 33.5%. The Bell Labs division was to be maintained, but the Alcatel-Lucent brand would be replaced by Nokia. In October 2015, following approval of the deal by China's Ministry of Commerce, the merger awaited approval by French regulators. Despite the initial intent of selling the submarine cable division separately, Alcatel-Lucent later declared that it would not. The merger closed on 14 January 2016, but was not complete until 3 November 2016. From the acquisition, Nokia is now also the owner of the Alcatel Mobile phone brand, which continues to be licensed to TCL.

2016–2019

On 26 April 2016, Nokia announced its intent to acquire French connected health device maker Withings for US$191 million. The company was integrated into a new Digital Health unit of Nokia Technologies. Nokia later wrote off the cost of the acquisition and in May 2018 the health unit was sold back to Éric Carreel, a Withings co-founder and former CEO.

On 18 May 2016, Microsoft Mobile sold its Nokia-branded feature phone business to HMD Global, a new company founded by former Nokia executive Jean-Francois Baril, and an associated factory in Vietnam to Foxconn's FIH Mobile subsidiary. Nokia subsequently entered into a long-term licensing deal to make HMD the exclusive manufacturer of Nokia-branded phones and tablets outside Japan, operating in conjunction with Foxconn. The deal also granted HMD the right to essential patents and featurephone software. HMD subsequently announced the Android-based Nokia 6 smartphone in January 2017. At Mobile World Congress, HMD additionally unveiled the Nokia 3 and Nokia 5 smartphones, as well as a re-imagining of Nokia's classic 3310 feature phone. Nokia has direct investments in the company, and it does have some input in the new devices.

On 28 June 2016, Nokia demonstrated for the first time a 5G-ready network. In February 2017 Nokia carried out a 5G connection in Oulu, Finland using the 5GTF standard, backed by Verizon, on Intel architecture-based equipment.

In July 2017, Nokia and Xiaomi announced that they have signed a business collaboration agreement and a multi-year patent agreement, including a cross-license to each company's cellular standard-essential patents. In that year, Nokia's brand value was ranked 188th by Brand Finance, a jump of 147 places from 2016. Its rise was attributed to its health portfolio and new mobile phones developed by HMD Global.

In January 2018, Nokia signed a deal with NTT Docomo, Japan's largest mobile operator, to provide 5G wireless radio base stations in the country by 2020. Later that month, Nokia announced the ReefShark line of 5G chipsets, claiming that it triples bandwidth to 84 Gbit/s. In March, Solidium, the investment arm of the Finnish Government, purchased a 3.3% stake in Nokia valued at €844 million. In May, Nokia announced that it had acquired a California-based IoT startup, SpaceTime Insight.

2020–present

On 2 March 2020, Nokia announced Pekka Lundmark as its new CEO. Later that month, Nokia completed the acquisition of Elenion Technologies, a U.S.-based company focusing on silicon photonics technology to improve economics of advanced optical connectivity products.

On 27 May 2020, Sari Baldauf succeeded Risto Siilasmaa as chairwoman of the board of directors, and Kari Stadigh was appointed vice chair. In June, Nokia won a 5G contract worth approximately $450 million from Taiwan Mobile to build out the telecom operator's next-generation network as the sole supplier. In October, Nokia announced a contract with NASA to build a 4G mobile network for astronaut usage on the moon. The $14.1 million contract, through subsidiary Bell Labs, was expected to begin in 2022.

In 2020, Flipkart collaborated with Nokia to market Nokia-branded consumer products in India. These included televisions, a laptop and a range of air conditioners.

In April 2022, Nokia announced that it would exit the Russian market following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company stated that the decision would not affect its financial outlook as Russia accounted for less than 2% of Nokia's net sales in 2021.

In February 2023, the company introduced a new logo for the first time in nearly 60 years to change its brand identity as people still associated the previous logo with mobile phones. The new logo was designed by Lippincott.

In December 2023, Nokia acquired Fenix Group to strengthen its wireless offering in the defense segment for an undisclosed amount. In the same month, Nokia announced a €185 million deal with Lumine Group to carve out its device management business (inherited from Alcatel-Lucent's purchase of Motive, Inc.) and its service management business (formerly Mformation). The deal completed in April 2024 and involved the transfer of around 500 Nokia employees.

In February 2024, the company announced that it was accelerating its carbon neutrality target by 10 years to 2040 after having previously committed to cutting its carbon footprint across emissions scopes in half by 2030 from a 2019 baseline.

Current operations

Nokia is a julkinen osakeyhtiö (public joint-stock company) listed on the Nasdaq Nordic/Helsinki and New York stock exchanges. Nokia has played a very large role in the economy of Finland, and it is an important employer in the country, working with multiple local partners and subcontractors. Nokia contributed 1.6% to Finland's GDP and accounted for about 16% of the country's exports in 2006.

Nokia comprises two business groups along with further subsidiaries and affiliated firms.

Nokia Networks

Nokia Networks is Nokia Corporation's largest division. It is a multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and is the world's third-largest telecoms equipment manufacturer, measured by 2017 revenues (after Huawei and Cisco). In the USA it competes with Ericsson on building 5G networks for operators, while Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corporation were effectively banned.

It has operations in around 150 countries.

Nokia Networks provides wireless and fixed network infrastructure, communications and networks service platforms and professional services to operators and service providers. It focuses on GSM, EDGE, 3G/W-CDMA, LTE and WiMAX radio access networks, supporting core networks with increasing IP and multiaccess capabilities and services.

The Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) brand identity was launched at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February 2007 as a joint venture between Nokia (50.1%) and Siemens (49.9%), although it is now wholly owned by Nokia. In July 2013, Nokia bought back all shares in Nokia Siemens Networks for a sum of US$2.21 billion and renamed it to Nokia Solutions and Networks, shortly thereafter changed to simply Nokia Networks.

Nokia Technologies

Nokia Technologies (formerly Nokia Advanced Technologies) is a division of Nokia that develops consumer products and licenses technology including the Nokia brand. Its focuses are imaging, sensing, wireless connectivity, power management and materials, and other areas such as the IP licensing and patenting program. It consists of three labs: Radio Systems Lab, in areas of radio access, wireless local connectivity and radio implementation; Media Technologies Lab, in areas of multimedia and interaction; and Sensor and Material Technologies Lab, in areas of advanced sensing solutions, interaction methods, nanotechnologies and quantum technologies. Nokia Technologies also provides public participation in its development through the Invent with Nokia program. It was created in 2014 following a restructuring of Nokia Corporation.

In November 2014, Nokia Technologies launched its first product, the Nokia N1 tablet computer. In July 2015, Nokia Technologies introduced a VR camera called OZO, designed for professional content creators and developed in Tampere, Finland. With its 8 synchronized shutter sensors and 8 microphones, the product can capture stereoscopic 3D video and spatial audio. Production of the OZO camera was discontinued in 2017, but the immersive audio software technologies continue under the Nokia OZO brand, still keeping Nokia in the virtual reality market.

On 31 August 2016, Ramzi Haidamus announced he would be stepping down from his position as president of Nokia Technologies. Brad Rodrigues, previously head of strategy and business development, assumed the role of interim president. On 30 June 2017, Gregory Lee, previously CEO of Samsung Electronics in North America, was appointed Nokia Technologies CEO and president.

Nokia Bell Labs

Nokia Bell Labs is a research and scientific development company that was once the R&D arm of the American Bell System. It became a subsidiary of Nokia Corporation after the takeover of Alcatel-Lucent in 2016.

In December 2023, Nokia announced plans for a new research facility in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The relocation from the 80-year-old Bell Labs facility at Murray Hill, New Jersey is expected to occur before 2028. The Murray Hill laboratories produced important innovations for AT&T Corp., Lucent Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia.

NGP Capital

NGP Capital (formerly Nokia Growth Partners) is a global venture capital firm, focusing on investments in the growth stage "Internet of things" (IoT) and mobile technology companies. NGP holds investments throughout the U.S., Europe, China and India. Their portfolio consists of companies in mobile technology including the sectors Connected Enterprise, Digital Health, Consumer IoT, and Connected Car. Following a $350 million funding for IoT companies in 2016, NGP manages $1 billion worth of assets.

Nokia had previously promoted innovation through venture sponsorships dating back to 1998 with Nokia Venture Partners, which was renamed BlueRun Ventures and spun off in 2005. The China arm of BlueRun Ventures became independent in 2010 and would be rebranded to Lanchi Ventures. Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) was founded in 2005 as a growth stage venture fund as a continuation of the early successes of Nokia Venture Partners. In 2017, the company was renamed to NGP Capital.

NGP's largest exits include GanJi, UCWeb, Whistle, Rocket Fuel, Swype, Summit Microelectronics and Netmagic.

Nuage Networks

Nuage Networks is a venture providing software-defined networking solutions. It was formed by Alcatel-Lucent in 2013 to develop a software overlay for automating and orchestrating hybrid clouds. It has been part of Nokia following its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2016. Throughout 2017 Nuage sealed deals with Vodafone and Telefónica to provide its SD-WAN architecture to its servers. BT had already been a client since 2016. A deal with China Mobile in January 2017 also used Nuage's software-defined networking technology for 2,000 public cloud servers at existing data centers in China, and another in October 2017 with China Pacific Insurance Company.

The company is based in Mountain View, California and the CEO is Sunil Khandekar.

Alcatel Mobile

Alcatel Mobile is a mobile phone brand owned by Nokia since 2016. It has been licensed since 2005 to Chinese company TCL when it was under the ownership of Alcatel (later Alcatel-Lucent) in a contract until 2024.

HMD Global

HMD Global is a mobile phone company based in Espoo, Finland. The Nokia brand has been licensed by former Nokia employees who founded HMD Global and introduced Nokia-branded Android-based devices to the market in 2017. Initially, Nokia had no investment in the company but retained some input in the development of its devices.

Nokia has 10.10% ownership in HMD Global after investing alongside Qualcomm and Google in 2020. In the 2020 financial report, FIH Mobile disclosed it has a 14.38% ownership in HMD Global. Finnish Nokia owns 10.10% of HMD Global, while other investors include Google, Qualcomm, and others with an undisclosed share in HMD.

Alcatel Submarine Networks

Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is a provider of turnkey undersea network solutions. The business unit develops technology and offers installation services for optical submarine cable network links across the world's oceans.

Previously, Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks, also became part of Nokia in 2016. Nokia and ASN had added another cable ship to the fleet called, CS Ile d'Ouessant. The CS Ile d’Ouessant was purchased in 2019 and was originally built in 2011 as the CS Toisa Warrior. Additionally, in 2021, Nokia and ASN requested two cable ships for the fleet, the CS Ile d'Yeu and CS Ile de Molène.

Here is a list of the cable-laying fleet from Alcatel (6), to Alcatel-Lucent (6 and 7), though Nokia (8):

CS Ile d'Yeu (2001, 2021–Present) Built in 2001. Purchased in 2021 by Nokia ASN as two additional ships for a fleet of eight cable ships. (IMO 9230414)

CS Ile d'Molène (2006, 2021–Present) Built in 2006. Purchased in 2021 by Nokia ASN two additional ships for a fleet of eight cable ships. (IMO 9329928)

CS Ile d’Ouessant (2011, 2019–Present) Built in 2011 as the CS Toisa Warrior. Purchased by Nokia ASN in 2019. (IMO 9427108)

CS Ile d'Aix (1992, 2011–Present) Built in 1992, as the cable ship, CS Gulmar Badaro. Purchased by Alcatel-Lucent in 2011, renaming the ship as CS Ile de AIX.

CS Ile d' Brehat (2002–Present) Built in 2002. North route main lay of 4400 km for 2003 APOLLO route. Route clearance in 2015 for GTT Express.

CS Ile d' Sein (2001–Present) Built in 2001, Length: 140.36 m, Cable work in 2003 of routes Azores to Madeira and Madeira to Porto Santo.

CS Ile d' Batz (2001–Present) Built in 2001, 2003 APOLLO: Widemouth Bay, Bude, England to Brookhaven, USA and Lannion, France to Manasquan, USA, 2008 worked on TPE (Trans Pacific Express)

Corporate affairs

Business trends

The key trends for Nokia are (as of the financial year ending 31 December):

Corporate governance

The control and management of Nokia is divided among the shareholders at a general meeting and the Nokia Group Leadership Team (left), under the direction of the board of directors (right). The chairman and the rest of the Nokia Leadership Team members are appointed by the board of directors. Only the chairman of the Nokia Leadership Team can belong to both the board of directors and the Nokia Group Leadership Team. The Board of Directors' committees consist of the Audit Committee, the Personnel Committee, and the Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee.

The operations of the company are managed within the framework set by the Finnish Companies Act, Nokia's Articles of Association, and Corporate Governance Guidelines, supplemented by the board of directors' adopted charters. On 25 November 2019, Nokia announced that it would discontinue the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) and distribute its functions to other company leaders. As a result, Chief Operating Officer Joerg Erlemeier decided to step down, effective 1 January 2020.

Stock

Nokia is a public limited liability company and is the oldest company listed under the same name on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, beginning in 1915. Nokia has had a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange since 1994. Nokia shares were delisted from the London Stock Exchange in 2003, the Paris Stock Exchange in 2004, the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 2007 and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2012. Due to the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2015, Nokia listed its shares again on the Paris Stock Exchange and was included in the CAC 40 index on 6 January 2016 but later removed on 18 September 2017.

In 2007, Nokia had a market capitalization of €110 billion; by 17 July 2012 this had fallen to €6.28 billion, before increasing to €26.0 billion by 23 February 2015. Nokia's market cap at 2020 was 21.76 billion.

Corporate culture

Nokia's official corporate culture manifesto since the 1990s is called The Nokia Way. It emphasizes the speed and flexibility of decision-making in a flat, networked organization.

The official business language of Nokia is English. All documentation is written in English, and is used in official intra-company communication.

In 1992, Nokia adopted values that were defined with the key words respect, achievement, renewal and challenge. In May 2007, the company redefined its values after initiating a series of discussion across its worldwide branches regarding what the new values of the company should be. Based on the employee suggestions, the new values were defined as: Engaging You, Achieving Together, Passion for Innovation and Very Human. In August 2014, Nokia redefined its values again after the sale of its Devices business, using the original 1992 values again.

Headquarters

Nokia are based at Karaportti in Espoo, Finland, just outside capital Helsinki. It has been its head office since 2014 after moving from the purpose-built Nokia House in Espoo as part of the sale of the mobile phone business to Microsoft. The building in Karaportti was previously the headquarters of NSN (now Nokia Networks).

Awards and recognition

In 2018, Nokia received the Leading Lights award for most innovative cable/video product and was named to Ethisphere's 2018 world's most ethical companies list.

Controversies

NSN's provision of intercept capability to Iran

In 2008, Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens AG, reportedly provided Iran's monopoly telecom company with technology that allowed it to intercept the Internet communications of its citizens. The technology reportedly allowed Iran to use deep packet inspection to read and change the content of emails, social media, and online phone calls. The technology "enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes".

During the post-election protests in Iran in June 2009, Iran's Internet access was reported to have slowed to less than a tenth of its normal speeds, which experts suspected was due to using of deep packet inspection.

In July 2009, Nokia began to experience a boycott of its products and services in Iran. The boycott was led by consumers sympathetic to the post-election protest movement and targeted companies deemed to be collaborating with the regime. Demand for handsets fell and users began shunning SMS messaging.

Nokia Siemens Networks asserted in a press release that it provided Iran only with a "lawful intercept capability solely for monitoring of local voice calls" and that it "has not provided any deep packet inspection, web censorship, or Internet filtering capability to Iran".

Nokia–Apple patent dispute

In October 2009, Nokia filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. in the U.S. District Court of Delaware claiming that Apple infringed on 10 of its patents related to wireless communication including data transfer. Apple was quick to respond with a countersuit filed in December 2009 accusing Nokia of 11 patent infringements. Apple's general counsel, Bruce Sewell went a step further by stating, "Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours." This resulted in a legal battle between the two telecom majors with Nokia filing another suit, this time with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging Apple had infringed its patents in "virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers". Nokia went on to ask the court to ban all U.S. imports of the Apple products, including the iPhone, Macintosh and iPod. Apple countersued by filing a complaint with the ITC in January 2010.

In June 2011, Apple settled with Nokia and agreed to an estimated one time payment of $600 million and royalties to Nokia. The two companies also agreed on a cross-licensing patents for some of their patented technologies.

Alleged tax evasion in India

Nokia's Indian subsidiary was charged in January 2013 with non-payment of Indian Tax Deducted at Source and transgressing transfer pricing norms in India. The unpaid TDS of ₹30 billion, accrued during a course of six years, was due to royalty paid by the Indian subsidiary to its parent company.

Nokia 7 Plus data breach

In March 2019, news broke that the company's Nokia 7 Plus phones were allegedly sending personal user data to China over several months. According to investigators, the gadget sent unencrypted data packages including geographical location, SIM card number, and the phone's serial number to an unidentified Chinese server every time that "the phone was turned on, the screen activated or unlocked." The data was sufficient to follow the movements and actions of the phone in real time.

Nokia brand owner HMD Global denied any such transfers had taken place, stating that it was instead the result of an error in the packing process of the phone's software. The Finnish Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman launched an investigation into the matter on the assumption "that personal data has been transferred."

Xinjiang region

In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands, including Nokia, of being connected to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang.