Nokia has been out of the smartphone business but the Finnish company's brand could be seen once again in 2017. One twist is that they will not be the ones to manufacture the phones.
Before the big smartphone boom, Nokia reigned king of cellphones because of the quality of their products. Even their Nokia 3310 became a meme that exaggerates its sturdiness compared to today's fragile smartphones.
Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia smartphones turned out to be a bust as the likes of Samsung and Apple swallowed the market. Now, Nokia could be making a comeback with its own line of smartphones.
Nokia could reveal their new smartphone line at the CES 2017 event in Las Vegas soon, according to Trusted Reviews. The Finnish handset company could also reveal their new line at the Mobile World Congress which starts on Feb. 27, 2017 in Barcelona.
Microsoft no longer owns the Nokia brand license but the latter will still not be manufacturing their own line of smartphones. Instead, the HMD Global Oy will be designing the phones since they have secured the rights for the Finnish brand.
HMD teamed up with Google for the new Nokia-branded smartphones which will run on Android. Unfortunately, Nokia will not be making any investment for the smartphones themselves as HMD will actually be paying royalties to the former, Fortune reported.
Foxconn, the manufacturer of Apple's iPhones, will be the one to produce the Nokia-branded devices from HMD. There are still some Nokia feature phones being sold in several markets across the globe although the numbers are quite small. The new line of Nokia smartphones in 2017 could hopefully ramp up the interest once again.
HMD's Nokia smartphones would be going against the Android smartphone giants such as Samsung, LG, Huawei, Sony and more including Apple's iOS devices. The specs of the smartphones are expected to be revealed either at CES 2017 or MWC 2017.
See one concept for a Nokia 2017 smartphone in the video below: