From love to hate: Why did Microsoft abandon Nokia and WP brands?

After Microsoft completed the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business, it laid off a large number of employees (mainly former Nokia employees) and cut Nokia's original Asha and S60 series feature phones and Nokia X series business. Recently, there are rumors that Microsoft plans to stop using Nokia and Windows Phone brands in marketing materials starting from this Christmas holiday season. In fact, how to integrate the brands after Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business has always been a concern of the industry (including Microsoft). Not long ago, some analysts believed that Microsoft would continue to use Nokia to squeeze out the brand value of Nokia, that is, continue to use and develop Nokia's brand and the feature phone business that benefits from its brand. So why did Microsoft make such a big change in such a short period of time? What is the reason behind this?

The industry knows that in 2011, in order to boost its own sluggish performance in the smartphone market, Microsoft persuaded Nokia to abandon its Symbian and join its Windows Phone camp. At that time, Microsoft still valued Nokia's brand influence and its much stronger mobile phone shipment base (smartphones and feature phones) than it is now. To this end, in the nearly three years that followed, Microsoft invested a lot of financial resources and did not hesitate to offend other OEM partners to promote Nokia's Windows Phone phones. But to Microsoft's disappointment, Nokia's huge mobile phone shipment base before the cooperation with Microsoft not only did not effectively convert into Windows Phone users, but instead caused the so-called "Elop effect". That is, while the shipments of smartphones and feature phones based on the Symbian platform have declined sharply, the sales of Lumia smartphones based on Microsoft Windows Phone have also grown slowly.

What made Microsoft even more angry was that the "Elop effect" eventually forced Microsoft to acquire Nokia's mobile phone business for $7.2 billion last year. The reason why we use the word "have to" here is that if Microsoft did not acquire Nokia, Nokia would probably abandon Microsoft's Windows Phone platform and switch to Google's Android camp, and at this time, the shipment volume and market share of Microsoft's mobile phone business were supported only by Nokia (Nokia Lumia phones using Microsoft's Windows Phone system accounted for more than 90% of Microsoft's Windows Phone shipments). Microsoft, which had hoped to cooperate with Nokia and use Nokia to bring hope to its mobile phone business, not only failed to achieve its goal, but also ended up burning itself and eventually had to play the role of a firefighter (because if Microsoft did not save Nokia, its mobile phone business would also die). What made Microsoft even more upset was that the latest statistics showed that the depreciation rate of Microsoft's investment was quite alarming. According to a survey by Brandirectory, Nokia, which was still among the top 10 brands in the world in 2008, did not appear on the top 500 list this year, and its brand value has shrunk to $3.2 billion. From this point of view, it is not unreasonable for Microsoft to abandon the Nokia brand, which it could have continued to use for 10 years.

At this point, some people may say that it is understandable to give up the Nokia brand, but why should we give up our own Windows Phone brand? In addition to the industry analysis that Microsoft will build a unified Windows strategy in the future, a little observation and analysis will not show that Microsoft has reached a strategic cooperation with Nokia shortly after the release of Windows Phone. Since then, whether in the industry or in the market, the Windows Phone brand has been more closely linked to the Nokia brand. Imagine if Microsoft did not cooperate with Nokia in the first place, and Microsoft took the initiative to promote its own Windows Phone with OEM partners, what would happen? We are not playing hindsight here, but from the cooperation between Microsoft and Nokia to the decline of Windows Phone's market share after Microsoft acquired Nokia, even if Microsoft promoted Windows Phone alone, the worst result would be just like this. At least it still had the support of other partners and built its own Windows Phone brand. But today Microsoft has to bury the Windows Phone brand together with the Nokia brand.

In summary, we believe that Microsoft's abandonment of Nokia and its own Windows Phone brand is due to the fact that the Nokia brand has lost its influence and is adapting to Microsoft's future Windows strategy, but from Microsoft's heart and its history of cooperation with Nokia, Microsoft's change from love to hate for Nokia is also an important reason that cannot be ignored. After all, Nokia not only delayed Microsoft's precious time and the promotion of its own brand, but also forced it to invest heavily to clean up the mess that is still depreciating. Of course, after abandoning the Nokia and WP brands and logos, whether Microsoft can finally change its slump in the mobile phone market on its own remains uncertain.

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.