Nokia Oyj is back in the fray.
Just months after selling its ailing handsets business to Microsoft Corp, the Finnish company is planning to go back into the consumer market with a new tablet.
The former top mobile phone maker, which has a history of reinventing itself since it began as a paper maker in the 19th century, said on Tuesday it will launch a 7.9-inch device early next year in China, the world’s biggest market, before selling it elsewhere.
The device will be manufactured by Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which makes Apple Inc’s handsets. It will operate Android instead of the Windows software Nokia used on its cellphones when it began a partnership with Microsoft in 2011. That partnership ended unsuccessfully — in April Nokia sold its cellphones unit to Microsoft for US$7.2 billion.
Hon Hai, known in China as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is fully responsible for business execution from engineering and sales to customer care, including liabilities and warranty costs, inbound intellectual property and software licensing, and contractual agreements with third parties, according to Nokia.
Sebastian Nystrom, head of Nokia’s technologies unit, described the N1 tablet as “a new beginning for Nokia.”
He noted that about 80 percent of the world’s mobile consumers use Android, compared with just 2.5 percent using Windows mobile devices. The aluminum-cased tablet uses Google Inc’s Android Lollipop operating system and will retail for US$250.
For sure, it won’t be an easy shift for Nokia after years of focusing on cellphones and a troubled networks operation that only recently has shown signs of improvement.
“It’s pointing in the right direction, but there are some real challenges,” said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics, near London. “It doesn’t have the distribution channels that others like Samsung and Apple enjoy, and nobody is making any profits in Android tablets at the moment.”
Nokia’s brand was wiped out of the handset market last week, when Microsoft unveiled its first Lumia smartphone under its own brand name.
“We are pleased to bring the Nokia brand back into consumers’ hands,” said Nystrom, who announced the launch of the tablet in Helsinki at Slush, one of Europe’s largest startup and investor events with about 10,000 participants expected over two days.
He hinted Nokia was also interested in producing an Android smartphone. That can’t happen before 2016, however, as the Microsoft deal included a commitment that Nokia not enter the smartphone business before then.
“Once that is finalized we have the option to do so,” Nystrom told reporters.
Additional reporting by CNA
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last