Nokia 6 is the brand's first Android smartphone and will be launched by HMD during the first half of 2017. (Photo : YouTube/AndroidPure)
Nokia-branded smartphones will return to the mobile market thanks to the Finnish tech company HMD Global. That business was launched last year and has just announced it is rolling out the first handset named Nokia 6. The Android smartphone will only be available to the Chinese market that includes over one billion mobile phone users.
HMD was formed in May 2016. Nokia 6 will be the brand's first phone that runs on Google's Android platform.
The tech company had originally planned to launch the new Nokia phone in time for the Chinese New Year next month. HMD, however, published a press release on Jan. 8, Sunday, introducing the new Nokia 6 phone. It will only be sold through the e-commerce giant J.D.com.
The Android device will have an aluminum unibody design and 5.5-inch touch screen. It will also include 4 gigabytes of RAM, 64GB of storage, and run Android 7.0 Nougat.
HMD's Vice President Nestor Xu announced through the company's official website that China is the world's biggest smartphone market. Therefore, it will release its first Android device in the Asian country.
HMD hopes to become a player in the smartphone industry. It also wants to develop products that consumers need and will launch other smartphones later this year.
Nokia rolled out a new phones section on its official site on Dec. 1, 2016. It then announced later it would launch its first Android phone during the first half of 2017.
Many industry experts, however, believe Nokia has almost no chance of earning big sales in the Chinese smartphone market. That is due to an increase in handset manufacturers and local brands during recent years.
Zhang Yi, CEO of the mobile consulting agency iiMedia Research Institute, told Global Times that Nokia is not popular among younger generations who prefer local brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi. That is the trend for units costing under 2,000 yuan ($288).
Nokia was once the world's most popular cellphone maker but has had low sales figures in recent years. Microsoft purchased the brand in 2014 for an exorbitant price of $7.2 billion (49.9 billion yuan).
It turned out to be a big mistake. Microsoft was trying to catch up with Apple and Android in the smartphone industry but the mobile department lost about $7.6 billion (52 billion yuan) and had to cut 7,800 jobs.
The Nokia 6 will cost 1,699 yuan ($245). More phones could be launched as early as the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in late February.
Here is a Nokia 6 commercial:
