HMD management refused to answer any questions about Nokia the brand tha has carried the UK Company for decades, now and effective from January 1 2025, all reference to current Nokia devices has been stripped from the Companies web site with the business now left to flogging their HMD devices that are struggling to get traction in Australia.

For nine months we have been pushing HMD management in Australia to confirm that the Company was set to lose their licence to manufacture and sell Nokia devices as of Jan 1 2025, after they stumped up millions between 2017 for the rights.

The problem for HMD is that the Lenovo owned Motorola brand who are now the #3 smartphone brand behind Samsung and Apple has stripped share from Chinese smartphone brands in Australia as well as Nokia, with their products and Samsung A Series devices being chosen over an HMD device by consumers.

The loss of Nokia, comes despite reassurances as recently as August that Nokia was set to be part of the HMD portfolio going forward.

A visit o the HMD web site reveals that all Nokia devices have been listed as unavailable.

The remaining stock that HMD are liable or for have been moved to a separate section from HMD’ssmartphones.

The page displays links and images to over a dozen different Nokia smartphones and tablets, but clicking any of those will show a barebones summary with a message saying, “This phone is no longer available.”

Even now there has been no official statement regarding the change, but it seems that HMD has thrown in the towel on trying to keep the brand alive claims Digital Trends.

The Company is still trying to flog feature phones in an effort to keep up their production volumes.

The change in direction by HMD does not necessarily mean that the Nokia brand is set to disappear all together.

ChannelNews was told at CES that there is the “real possibility that a Chinese manufacturer could pick up the rights to the Nokia brand in the future.

Nokia is a major European Company that is involved in a lot more than just phones; it also provides technology to a huge range of different fields and is even working on a collaborative project with several other companies to put a cellular network on the moon.

Barbie gets an HMD feature phone.

Barbie gets an HMD feature phone.

One issue for HMD has been cash flow and the generation of profits to support two brands.

Back in 2023 we reported that in the prior year the usiness was facing significant financial challenges.

HMD’s net sales for 2022 decreased by 12.2% to 1.257 billion euros compared to 1.433 billion euros the previous year.

The company also reported an operating loss of A$128M million in contrast to a profit in 2021, which was its first ever profitable year.

What’s not known is how much it has cost the business as they try to build out the HMD smartphone brand especially as consumers have not taken to the brand claim analysts.