Can Nokia be reborn in the mobile phone industry?

Recently, Microsoft replaced Nokia with Microsoft in the naming of its Lumia mobile phone. At the same time, Nokia, which sold its mobile phone business, released a brilliant third-quarter financial report (of course, it mainly refers to Nokia's network equipment business). Perhaps encouraged by the brilliant financial report, Nokia announced that they will re-evaluate the possibility of returning to the mobile phone industry. In this regard, some foreign media commented that Nokia will stage a nirvana in the mobile phone industry in the future. Is the reality really as optimistic as Nokia's top management and the industry think? Here we might as well take a look at the capital that Nokia itself and the industry believe may make a comeback in the mobile phone industry.

First of all, Nokia's brand influence in the mobile phone industry. Nokia believes that it is still the most valuable brand in the field of mobile phones and mobile devices. Nokia's understanding of itself is not entirely unreasonable, but the only thing it ignores is that the golden age of Nokia's brand influence in the mobile phone industry was in the era of feature phones. In the era of smartphones represented by Apple's iPhone, Nokia's brand influence has shrunk significantly, and even became a negative example that hinders the innovation, development and transformation of the smartphone industry. Looking at reports on the smartphone-related industry, almost all of them are negative criticisms.

Even before Microsoft changed its name after acquiring Nokia, a related survey showed that as many as 73% of respondents hoped to use the Lumia brand instead of the Nokia brand on future Lumia devices. As a well-known fact, Lumia is the product of the strategic cooperation between Nokia and Microsoft using the Windows Phone system. In other words, in terms of brand attributes, the industry more often associates it with Microsoft. Otherwise, Microsoft would not have retained and adopted the Lumia product brand when it merged Nokia's mobile phone business and changed its name.

In addition to the brand, foreign media believe that Nokia's mobile phone's comeback is because Nokia's old research and development center in Helsinki, Finland has independently established a new mobile phone brand Jolla. The team is composed of former Nokia employees, and they are fully committed to developing a new mobile phone operating system Sailfish and Jolla mobile phones. In fact, as early as the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in 2013, Sailfish appeared on the stage with Firefox OS, Ubuntu, Tizen, etc., which aroused strong response in the industry at that time and was considered a new force in the future mobile market to challenge Apple, Google and Microsoft.

But more than a year later, Ubuntu almost disappeared after failing in its crowdfunding project for smartphones; Tizen has not officially landed on the smartphone platform except for testing the waters on Samsung's own smartwatches; Firefox OS has not caused much ripples despite launching smartphones. As for Sailfish, if it had not been brought up again this time, the industry would have probably forgotten it long ago. On the contrary, compared with these so-called challengers, the industry sees the continuous growth of Apple and Google in the smartphone ecosystem, that is, from the current perspective, the trend of the strong getting stronger in the smartphone industry is becoming more and more obvious. In order to break or even reverse this trend of the strong getting stronger, disruptive innovation is necessary. But judging from the past and current development of Sailfish, Sailfish is not up to the task.

Finally, and more importantly, given the terms of Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business, even if Nokia is determined to return to the mobile phone industry, it will be at least after 2016. Judging from the current development characteristics of the smartphone industry, except for Apple, the stickiness of brands to the market and users is not high. Samsung, whose brand awareness was second only to Apple before, has declined sharply in the smartphone industry. In addition, the driving force of the development of the smartphone industry is shifting to cost-effectiveness, which has further reduced brand loyalty. This has reduced the value of Nokia's return to the mobile phone industry as we mentioned earlier. By then, it will be a blessing for the Nokia mobile phone brand not to be forgotten, not to mention its influence.

As the saying goes: once you lose an opportunity, it will never come back. In fact, before Nokia's mobile phone business was acquired by Microsoft, Nokia had already lost many opportunities to continue or make a comeback. For example, the MeeGo system that was optimistic about the industry at the time; earlier joining the Google Android camp, and even after reaching a strategic cooperation with Microsoft, using the huge base of feature phones to develop smartphone users. It is said that opportunity only knocks on the door once, but for Nokia, the market has given this former mobile phone giant too many opportunities. This seems to prove from one side that perhaps among these many favors, only one was Nokia's real opportunity, but in any case, Nokia did miss it.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.