HMD Global the Company that has the rights to manufacture and sell Nokia phones worldwide including Australia, is set to begin selling smartphones under its own HMD brand according to the Companies CEO.
Questions are now being asked why? with speculation mounting as to whether the business that primarily sells into the vale and affordable premium market will renew their Nokia licence in 2026.
HMD Global’s CEO Jean-Francois Baril announced on his LinkedIn that the company is establishing an original HMD brand.
At this stage, the business is claiming that the HMD brand will coexist alongside Nokia devices and “collaboration with exciting new partners.”
The new partners have not been announced.
In Australia HMD Global, will this week announce new Nokia models for the value market with the business that has recently expanded their instore merchandising at JB Hi Fi alongside Motorola, benefiting from a move away from Chinese Brands such as Oppo, Vivo and Realme brands.
Oppo was recently stripped from several retail stores in Europe after they lost a patent theft battle with Nokia.
HMD Global’s license for the Nokia brand expires in 2026 unless renewed and at this stage there is no evidence that the HMD Global will not renew their licence.
Nokia has had a chequred history in Australia after being a major player in the early days of feature phones the business was slow to invest in the Android OS believing that they could develop their own operating system.
When this failed, their mobile business was sold to Microsoft in 2014 and this turned out to be a “total disaster” according to observers.
In 2016, Microsoft Mobile announced the sale of its feature phone business to the Finnish HMD Global and FIH Mobile.
The sale included design rights and its rights to use the Nokia brand on all types of mobile phones and tablets worldwide until 2024.
The move to their own branded smartphone comes at a difficult time with smartphone sales falling according to the latest IDC data.
According to International Data Corporation research of sales the Australian smartphone market declined by 7.6% Year-on-Year (YoY) in 1Q23, shipping 1.6 million units.
The market remained subdued, with inflation hovering around 7% and higher interest rates starting to weigh down on consumer demand towards the end of the quarter.
During this period Oppo lost considerable share with both Nokia and Motorola growing share as consumers chose Western brands over Chinese brands.
The drop in consumer demand can be attributed to high inflation and growing macroeconomic concerns.
This has led to high inventory levels across channels, so vendors are adopting a cautious approach by limiting their inventory into the channels.
Shipments in most price segments dropped, except for the premium segment (US$1000+) which was driven by the Galaxy S23 series and the iPhone 14 series. This resulted in a 15% YoY increase in the average selling price (ASP) to US$835 (AU$1,222).
HMD Global management recently reinforced that they exclusively hold the license to the Nokia phone brand until at least 2026.
Android Authority recently claimed “Tt appears the brand is preparing for its path beyond the agreement. If the company does intend to make affordable phones, we hope it makes some competitive ones”.
Recently Nokia scored a new Patent lawsuit win over OPPO in the UK. This was tipped to force OPPO out of the UK market if it doesn’t enter a UK court-determined FRAND license with Nokia.
The loss saw them exit several European markets a move that benefitted both Nokia and Samsung with a Series smartphones.
Nokia filed patent infringement complaints against OPPO in multiple markets across Europe and Asia in 2021. Nokia had secured a multi-year patent deal with OPPO in 2018 which expired in 2021.
In recent times Nokia has signed royalty-bearing licensing agreements with likes of Lenovo, Samsung, Xiaomi, Apple, LG, and Blackberry.
