Under pressure in Australia European smartphone brand HMD Global, appears to have pulled the plug on their US operation, where the Company was struggling to grow sales despite the lack of several Chinese mobile brands.

The former licensee of the Nokia brand whose management thought it would be far more profitable to launch a new house brand HMD, than pay royalties has conformed a massive scaling back of their US operation including the closing down of their US web site.

In Australia the brand is struggling up against a surging Motorola, a resurgence of the Oppo brand and an expansion of Samsung’s A series and mid-range handsets.

Barbie gets an HMD feature phone.

Barbie gets an HMD feature phone.

HMD’s US webstore is no longer online, and product pages either give no buying information, or have a “Where to buy” button that isn’t functional.

At this stage it does appear that Amazon is still selling the HMD smartphones however this appears to be more about getting rid of stock claims one insider.

Based in Finland, HMD was formed in 2016 in order to purchase the Nokia feature phone business from Microsoft, which had in turn bought the ailing brand in 2014.

It also secured a license to use the Nokia name on smartphones and tablets, with a focus on affordable and midrange hardware.

In a similar move to what happened with the Alcatel brand in Australia, HMD like TCL chose to try and get their own brand up as opposed to paying a royalty fee which in TCL’s case was to the French owners of the brand and HMD to Finish Company Nokia.

Both moves have failed with the TCL smartphone brand struggling to get traction and the HMD brand now appearing to have problems.

HMD confirmed the withdrawal in a statement claiming, “a challenging geopolitical and economic environment,”, for their decision.

The Company has not released any financials globally since they decided to drop the Nokia brand.

HMD says that it will continue to honour “warranty coverage and service for existing products,” in the USA which is a legal requirement.

They added ”Like many global businesses, HMD is navigating a challenging geopolitical and economic environment. After careful consideration, we have made the decision to scale back our US operations.

Our priority is ensuring a seamless transition for our customers and partners. We will continue to honour all obligations, including warranty coverage and service for existing products, and provide full support through our global teams.

We deeply value the contributions of our US colleagues impacted by this change and are committed to supporting them during this transition.

Management claim that HMD remains focused on long-term growth.