Nokia reveals new emblem to remind you it doesn’t make telephones anymore

Finnish telecoms agency Nokia has redesigned its logo to remind the world that it doesn’t make cell phones anymore.

“In most individuals’s minds, we’re nonetheless a profitable cell phone model, however this isn’t what Nokia is about,” Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark told Bloomberg. “We need to launch a brand new model that’s focusing very a lot on the networks and industrial digitalization, which is a totally completely different factor from the legacy cell phones.”

Nokia revealed its new brand identity on Sunday at MWC — the primary main redesign of the agency’s emblem in practically 60 years. The corporate has come a great distance since its founding as a single paper mill operation in 1865. Its unique emblem featured a salmon head — a reference to the B river by which the mill was established and which gave the corporate its title.

Nokia as soon as dominated the cellular world however didn’t adapt to the smartphone period spearheaded by Apple and Google. The corporate bought its cell phone enterprise to Microsoft in 2014, however the deal was a catastrophe.

By 2016, Microsoft had lost at least $8 billion on the acquisition and started winding down its personal smartphone enterprise, which didn’t tackle iOS and Android. That 12 months, the Nokia cellular model was sold to a new entity based by former Nokia staff, HMD World. Android handsets started being bought below the Nokia title as soon as extra, although they’re now manufactured by Foxconn subsidiary FIH Cellular.

HMD confirmed to The Verge that Nokia’s rebrand doesn’t have an effect on its personal use of the unique emblem. “The basic Nokia model has an unbelievable historical past in cell phones,” mentioned Lars Silberbauer, HMD’s chief advertising officer. “Our Nokia branded telephones such because the three new gadgets we introduced this week, the Nokia G22, Nokia C22 and Nokia C32 proceed the good momentum related to the basic Nokia emblem.” HMD revealed the brand new repairable G22 simply days in the past, complete with the original Nokia logo.

Nokia itself now makes cash by way of companies together with the sale of networking gear and the licensing of its many patents, together with to cellular makers. The corporate has additionally been pushing exhausting into 5G, with this portion of its enterprise buoyed by bans on gear manufactured by Chinese language rival Huawei.

In a blog post, Lundmark mentioned the corporate’s new emblem “captures Nokia as we’re right now, with renewed vitality and dedication as pioneers of digital transformation.”

Mentioned Lundmark: “We constructed on the heritage of the earlier emblem, however made it really feel extra modern and digital, to mirror our present id … That is Nokia … however not because the world has seen us earlier than.”

Replace, February twenty eighth, 07:53AM ET: Story up to date with assertion from HMD World