Nokia Remains Silent on Future of Brand Licensing

Many licensing partners have removed Nokia-branded products from their sites and are now offering other brands. For example, the Austrian company StreamView, which previously made well-regarded Nokia-branded TVs, is now shifting to producing Thomson TVs.

Similarly, RichGo, which manufactured Nokia-branded audio accessories and other products, has removed all Nokia items from its website. Meanwhile, HMD has launched its own brand, even in the feature phone market, and OffGlobal doesn’t appear to be continuing the production of Nokia-branded laptops.

Given these developments, it seems logical to conclude that Nokia is moving further away from the traditional consumer market, or at least from the Nokia brand we once knew. Their primary focus now appears to be on networks, although some products like beacons are still available, albeit not through traditional sales channels.

I reached out to Nokia to ask what’s going on and whether they plan to continue licensing their brand. As usual, Nokia provided a brief response, stating that they do not comment on future business plans. This statement isn’t much different from what we heard when HMD announced its new strategy.

Here is the statement from the Nokia spokesperson.

We continue to wish HMD every success in their transition to a multi-brand strategy and we do not have information to share on other brand licensees at this time.