Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella holds a new Nokia Lumia 930 as he delivers a keynote address during the 2014 Microsoft Build developer conference on April 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California. (Photo : Getty Images/Justin Sullivan)
The phone business of Microsoft has never been its forte, and now the company is reportedly contemplating to move out of it. According to latest reports, the company plans to license the Nokia brand, whose rights it holds until 2024, to Foxconn.
The Redmond tech giant, which has been witnessing rapid decline in the sale of its smartphones, is planning is shut down the company's phone business, VTech, a Chinese website, reported. During the first quarter of 2016, Microsoft sold only 15 million handsets.
Aside from the Nokia brand, the company also plans to merge its remaining Microsoft Mobile business, including the Lumia brand, with its Surface team. The report in the Chinese website further stated that the Redmond tech firm is likely to retrench 50 percent of employees of Microsoft Mobile.
Microsoft acquired the Devices and Services division of the Finnish firm Nokia in April 2014. The company unveiled its first Lumia device, the 535, in November that year. Since then, the division has suffered huge losses in terms of sale.
For quite some time now, Microsoft has been downsizing its mobile hardware production. During the period between November 2014 and March 2015, the company just manufactured low-end devices like the Lumia 430, 435, 532, 540, 636, 638, 640, and 640 XL, Neowin reported.
Till October 2014, Microsoft did not launch any new handset despite completing the acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services division six months back. Microsoft launched the first Lumia phone running on Windows 10 Mobile in November, but it failed to entice customers.
Subsequently, the company introduced a number of other handsets including the Lumia 550, 950, and 950 XL. Microsoft announced the Lumia 650 in February this year and it is widely believed this handset is the last Lumia.
As Microsoft has already scaled back its own mobile hardware, the company now hopes that its hardware partners will take the license for Windows 10 Mobile for their new devices. This would be something similar to the company's business with other SKUs of Windows.
As Microsoft is yet to make any official announcement in this regard, the news published in the Chinese site should be considered a rumor. However, keeping in view that the Redmond tech titan is scaling down its phone hardware production and focusing more on third-party OEMs, the prospects of selling Nokia to Foxcomm may eventually turn out to be true.
Watch the hands on review of Microsoft Lumia 650 below:
