Nokia will be returning to the smartphone in Q4 2016 and it will be with Meizu
Nokia was once the leading cell phone manufacturer in the world, but the company lost its way in the smartphone world. Nokia clinged to Symbian for far too long and never really found its way in the smartphone space.
This Finland-based company has made some poor business decisions in the past, and the company ultimately had to sell their ‘Devices and Services’ business to Microsoft. Many people thought the company is done for, but Nokia made a comeback and manufactured their first Android-powered tablet, the Nokia N1. Well, Nokia didn’t manufacture this thing directly, Foxconn did it for them. The tablet is actually quite good, but its availability is still very limited.
Morlino said that Nokia would return to phones, but not in the same form as when it was the market head.
“The right path back to mobile phones for Nokia is through a brand-licensing model. That means identifying a partner that can be responsible for all of the manufacturing, sales, marketing and customer support for a product,” he wrote.
This would mean Nokia would produce the designs and technology while another company would manufacture and sell the devices which would bear the Nokia name. Before, Nokia manufactured its own devices.
That tactic makes sense given the fact that when Microsoft bought Nokia’s devices unit for $7.2 billion in the year 2013, it also took the manufacturing, marketing and distribution needed to sell phones. Also, under the Microsoft deal, the Finnish firm is not allowed to return to the phone market until the fourth quarter of 2016.
According to a new report, it seems like Meizu might be Nokia’s solution. The two companies have actually been rumored to be working together in the past, and it seems like those rumors were at least somewhat correct.
Meizu has welcomed back Nokia through their official Weibo (Chinese social network), and that really
doesn’t have to mean anything, but this China-based smartphone OEM has also released a separate Nokia-related teaser. This teaser actually highlights a particular date, July 16th, which is tomorrow, and the slogan reads ‘the long period of intelligent machines 1110?. The ‘1110’ part might be referring to the Nokia 1110; it makes all the sense in the world at this point. This is, of course, not a confirmation or anything of the sort, but the teaser seems kind of obvious.
As you most probably know, Nokia is not allowed to assemble smartphones under their brand until next year, as per their contract with Microsoft, that doesn’t mean they can’t get ready to do so though. Either way, we’ll find out what Meizu is referring to tomorrow considering the teaser is pointing in that direction, so stay tuned for that.
Earlier today, Meizu started sending out invitations to a special event on July 29 where the Meizu M2 will be unveiled. The interesting part comes as the invite contains a semi-functional Nokia 1110 feature phone, image of which is given above, probably one of the most popular phones of all time. This is thought to be Meizu’s unique way of saying that its upcoming M2 smartphone will come with the price/performance required to become an instant classic. According to rumors, the Meizu M2 will be priced at about 599 Yuan, or just under $100 at the current conversion rates.
