Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia Oyj said late on Monday that it was looking at re-entering the mobile phone market by striking a licensing deal with another firm.
“The right path back to mobile phones for Nokia is through a brand-licensing model,” the Finnish company said in a statement.
“That means identifying a partner that can be responsible for all of the manufacturing, sales, marketing and customer support,” the company said.
The group “would work closely” with its partner to “guide the design and technology differentiation,” it added.
Nokia was the world’s top mobile phone manufacturer between 1998 and 2011, but it was overtaken by South Korean rival Samsung Electronics Co after failing to respond to the rapid rise of smartphones.
The company sold its handset business to Microsoft Corp last year for US$7.2 billion, which later dropped the Nokia name from its Lumia smartphones.
Last week, Microsoft announced plans to cut 7,800 jobs and write down the value of its struggling mobile phone division.
A new Nokia handset could hit the market at the end of next year at the earliest as Microsoft holds the rights to the Nokia brand for mobile phones until then.
Separately, Uber Technologies Inc is now out of the running to acquire Nokia’s Here, the main competitor to Google Maps, according to three people with knowledge of the talks.
The ride-hailing service had submitted an offer for the mapping division this year for as much as US$3 billion.
Instead, the three people said, negotiations for Here have focused on a potential deal between Nokia and a consortium of German automakers, including BMW AG, Audi AG and Mercedez-Benz.
The automakers rely heavily on the Finnish company’s digital mapping division to power their onboard navigation and entertainment systems, the people said.
As other potential suitors have dropped out of the bidding process, the three German automakers have increasingly taken a tough negotiating position with Nokia, according to two of the people.
Additional reporting by NY Times News Service
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