Nokia Oyj has redesigned its logo to stop people from associating it with mobile phones. As the world increasingly adopts fifth-generation mobile technologies, the brand revamps, which were announced on Sunday, come along with new strategic pillars with the aim of enabling faster growth.
“In most people’s minds, we are still a successful mobile phone brand, but this is not what Nokia is about,” Chief Executive Office Pekka Lundmark said in an interview ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday. “We want to launch a new brand that is focusing very much on the networks and industrial digitalization, which is a completely different thing from the legacy mobile phones, he added.”
HMD Global Oy still sells Nokia-branded phones. HMD got the license after Microsoft Corp., which bought the business in 2014, stopped using the name.
Lundmark also said that Nokia will focus on adding market share in the company’s business by serving wireless service providers with network equipment. He said that Nokia now has “the ammunition and the tools” to take market share without sacrificing margins. That’s been helped by restrictions on Chinese rival, Huawei Technologies Co., after a number of European governments blocked the company from selling parts for 5G networks.
Nokia also wants to spike up growth in its business by selling private 5G networks to companies. The enterprise business reached an 8% share of Nokia’s top line last year, and the next target is to push the business “to double-digit” territory, mainly through organic growth and smaller acquisitions, the CEO said.
Still, Nokia ruled out taking the road of its main competitor Ericsson AB, whose $6.2 billion acquisition of Vonage Holdings Corp. was sparked by a similar aim to grow on the enterprise side.
Recently, Nokia got back an investment-grade BBB- rating from S&P Global Ratings, ending its more than decade-long slog in junk territory. Lundmark sees more work to do particularly focus on the company’s operating margins.
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