Microsoft is phasing out its use of the Nokia brand for smartphones, and will seeming complete this by the end of 2014. They are in any case required to do this by the end of 2015, as their license to use the brand for smartphones will expire then.
It seems by 2016 however Microsoft Mobile may be competing with Nokia-branded smartphones, probably running Android.
At Nokia’s recent Quarterly results conference call they said:
And finally on brand, we have not really spoken about anything else that we have looked at different business models, what other people have been using on brand and we will of course carefully assess what would be the best way for us to maximize the value of the Nokia brand, also taking into account that we’re in the lock-up period still in the Microsoft transaction regarding our possibility to use the brand and we have recognized that Nokia brand is the most valuable from recognition perspective in the area of mobile phones and mobile devices. And there we cannot go yet at the moment.
Of course Nokia today is a company without the design and manufacturing capacity it used to have, with all these resources now being with Microsoft Mobile On the other hand it would be relatively easy to license the brand to Asian OEMs, meaning by 2016 we could see Microsoft Mobile’s colourful handsets competing side by side with Nokia smartphones on store shelves.
Via NPU, image via Gadgetride
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