HMD’s Petri Hayryne brought in for questioning
HMD continued promoting and teasing with the results of their newest business strategy, HMD Brand, and phones for partners. The company organized an online chat over Discord with Petri Hayrynen, the Global Head of Product Marketing, who answered questions posted there. As you might suspect, Petri couldn’t reveal much about possible future products, which is standard practice since started projects can be cancelled even if market-ready. Also, revealing much of the product can affect marketing, so not much has been said.
What I gathered from the interview, which lasted about 20 minutes, is that new Nokia hardware will be limited so far to feature phones, while smartphones will be developed for HMD and potentially partners. HMD is experimenting with making feature phones a bit smarter, but Sailfish as an OS might not be considered. Actually, Petri couldn’t comment directly on it, but he did say they are exploring various aspects, although stripped-down Android is a preference for him.
Smartwatches, gaming phones, and various other accessories are possibilities but not something that we might see soon. HMD will work on bringing HMD accessories, and Petri couldn’t say if there will be any new Nokia accessories. Also, he couldn’t say whether some Nokia brands like PureView or Asha will be utilized in the future. It seems to me that the contract with Nokia is not leaving them too much space to push forward.
Regarding the unlocked bootloader on their devices, HMD is still in a mode of thinking about it, but the only possibility to see it is when devices come close to the end of the support period.
At the end of the interview, Jesus from HMD showed around the space which HMD rented while in Barcelona to do meetings with partners, interviews, and all the other chores.
You can check the interview here.
By the way, we know that HMD partnered with Mattel to make a Barbie flip phone a real thing. However, they hinted over Instagram that a Ken phone might also be introduced to the market.
