5 years of the purchase of nokia by microsoft, this is how the market has changed

If there is a brand that has led the way in part of the mobile industry, it is Nokia. Much has already happened since the release of phones like the Nokia 3310 or the Nokia N95, two models that represented a great evolution at the time they were launched. Years later, Apple would launch its first version of the iPhone, a fact that changed the definition of mobile phone as it was known to date. It is at this point where the European company begins to notice its decline, and then we will see both the causes and the response of the company to the adversities that consequently reached the end of 2018, the year in which the company achieved its most remarkable growth since 2013 decided to sell to Microsoft.

Nokia goes into decline

The year 2007 begins and Apple launches its first iPhone model. After this, practically almost all telephone companies change their conception of the common telephone to create what we know today as a smartphone. Nokia was the first and one of the most prominent, presenting such acclaimed models as the Nokia 5800, the N8 or the 808 PureView. The common factor between all these, in addition to an outstanding photographic section, was the operating system that they have integrated as standard: Symbian. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, what would be the brand's headache for years to come was developing: Android.

The inclusion of Symbian and its lag in aspects such as the interface or the functions of the system caused part of the decline of Nokia. You can see the general appearance of the system in this article.

Companies such as Samsung, LG or HTC, in addition to Apple itself, were beginning to gain popularity among ordinary users. In contrast, Nokia was beginning to lose market share due to the software inferiority of its Symbian operating system, which was now reaching its third version. In a last attempt to design a new system for their mobiles, the brand presented MeeGo, an alternative to Symbian free and with a series of functions quite similar to those of iPhone OS (which would later be called iOS) and Android that was released with the Nokia N9.

This was the Nokia 5800 with Symbian installed.

Months later, the market share was reduced to such an extent that a second company had to intervene in the company to avoid a total decline. That company was, as you can imagine, Microsoft. Nokia's lost market share rose to 63% during those years, becoming one of the brands with less relevance in the sector after its reign in the first position for no more and no less than 14 years, the longest period to date. date.

Microsoft buys Nokia

It was in 2013 when Microsoft announced the purchase of Nokia for the modest amount of 5.44 billion euros and in 2014 when it was completed. The intention of the company, in addition to launching Windows Phone phones under the Nokia name, was to appropriate all the Finnish manufacturer's patents: applications such as Nokia Here and patents related to the use of networks and hardware.

Microsoft buys Nokia's patents and begins to launch mobile phones under the company's name with Windows Phone 7 as standard.

In this same year Windows Phone began to gain popularity due to its simplicity compared to Android and iOS, and Nokia began to notice a slight improvement in market share. However, months after the purchase was made official, the growth share of the Windows operating system remained stagnant compared to its competition. Due to this, Microsoft decides to respond by launching Windows Phone 10 (or Windows 10 simply) and announces a higher remuneration to developers who decide to launch applications in its Store.

This was the Nokia Lumia 530, a low-end mobile that cost only 99 euros.

At the same time, models like the Nokia Lumia 930, Lumia 730 or 530 hit the market. Although they were terminals that fulfilled at the hardware level with power and cameras that stood out over other brands, the stagnation of Windows Phone caused the brand not to sell as expected. Despite this, Nokia began to gain strength in the low range, with phones that did not exceed 100 or 200 euros, something that to date was not very common.

This was the Nokia Lumia 1020 with 41 megapixels of camera presented during 2013.

But if we must highlight a Nokia model that is the Nokia Lumia 1020. This terminal stood out, among other things, for having the best photographic section of the year in which it was presented (2013), since it had a 41 megapixel sensor with Carl Zeiss optics. The photos captured by the mobile can be seen in this article from One Expert.

Windows Phone starts to lose interest

Although Nokia presented mobiles that had nothing to envy the competition, Windows 10 was beginning to lose all interest before two systems as mature as Android and iOS in versions 4.4 and 8.0. The fault of this was the lack of basic applications and the absence of some of the main functions of other operating systems. However, as we mentioned in the previous paragraph, the constant market share in the brand's entry range led the company to present the first Nokia mobile with Android: the Nokia X and the Nokia XL.

This was the Nokia XL, the first Nokia mobile with Android as standard under a fork of Microsoft with company applications.

Both terminals had a series of specifications aimed at the low end, such as a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor or a screen with an 800 x 400 resolution. The price of the two entry phones was only 110 and 130 euros. This also did not help the brand to lift its head in terms of market share, and the fault of this was Microsoft itself by including a modified version of Android 4.1.2 somewhat outdated with the company's applications, which is why which Microsoft would not re-launch a Nokia mobile with Android and for which it would change the name of its terminals subsequently to the name of the company.

HMD buys Nokia rights

Months passed and Microsoft continued to launch Nokia phones with Windows Phone, although now with the Microsoft name. We would no longer see mobiles with the Nokia name until 2017, the year in which Microsoft finally decides to sell a part of the phone company to make the purchase of Nokia profitable. However, Microsoft continued to market its phones under the same Microsoft Lumia name; after all, he owned almost all of the Finnish manufacturer's patents. A good example of this is the Microsoft 950 XL, a high-end mobile that released the new version of Windows 10 for mobile phones. This terminal was presented in 2016, and boasted of having hardware at the level of the main Android mobile brands.

This was the Microsoft Lumia 850 XL, one of the last Windows 10 Mobile phones presented to the market.

As we just mentioned, it is not until 2017 when we would see the first mobile with the Nokia name after the name change to Microsoft. This was due to the purchase of Nokia's mobile department by HMD Global. As a result, all the mobiles designed by HMD Global would be presented under the Nokia name, although the manufacture fell - and currently falls - on this new company.

Nokia resurfaces in the mid-range and low-end and Microsoft abandons Windows 10 Mobile

Time ended up proving Nokia right. This year 2018 has undoubtedly been the most relevant for the company. This is blamed on mobiles such as the Nokia 3, Nokia 5, Nokia 6 and the recently introduced Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 8 Sirocco. At the beginning of last year the brand decided to settle in the Android world with low and mid-range mobiles, such as series 3, 5 and 6. After the success of these, it was in 2018 when it decided to launch higher-end models. Such is its popularization that in Europe it manages to enter the ranking of the 5 best-selling brands of 2018, with a total of 1.6 million mobile phones sold during the first four months of the year.

Also in 2018 Microsoft decides to permanently kill the development of Windows 10 Mobile, although the developers already announced its decline during the previous year by publishing on the different social networks that Windows 10 would not receive official support, except for security alerts and bugs found in the latest versions of the system.

The new Nokia

We are already finishing this year and Nokia is proclaimed today as one of the main telephone manufacturers, at least in the European market. The launch of its Nokia 3, 5 and 6 have accounted for much of the success of the brand. So has the price of its low and mid-range mobiles and the inclusion of Android One as a base system. To this is added the good support of the brand when updating devices to the latest versions of the system. Of course, we must not ignore the quality of their phones, which have, among other things, a remarkable photographic section and a performance worthy of higher ranges.

At the moment we cannot predict what awaits the new Nokia in the years to come. What we can assure you is that if you follow this path, you will surpass the market share of the main telephony brands. At the head it has manufacturers like Huawei and of course, Xiaomi. We will have to see if the competition between these three helps improve the health of the medium and low ranges of mobile phones, since the high is taken over by brands such as Samsung, Apple or LG with phones that in most cases exceed 900 euros.