What Actually Happened to Nokia?

What Happened to Nokia? The Phone King That Quietly Came Back In 2007, four out of every ten phones sold on Earth were Nokias. Six years later, Nokia sold its phone business to Microsoft, and most people think the company simply died. It didn't. This is the story of how a Finnish paper mill became the king of mobile phones, how it lost its crown to the iPhone and Android, and how it reinvented itself as a networking company that Nvidia is now betting $1 billion on. CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 00:45 Paper, rubber boots and cables 02:13 A car phone, a crisis and a huge bet 04:22 Becoming the king 06:35 The phone that changed everything 09:40 The burning platform 12:15 Sold 13:25 What was left 16:21 From phones to AI 18:11 Where are they now SOURCES Wikipedia: Nokia; History of Nokia; Nokian Tyres; Nokian Footwear; HERE (maps); Nokia 3310 (2017) Forbes, 12 Nov 2007 cover: "Can anyone catch the cell phone king?" Guinness World Records: best-selling mobile phone (Nokia 1100) Nokia annual report 2008: 468 million phones sold VentureBeat / The New York Times (2010): Nokia's 2004 touchscreen prototype Engadget (2011): the "burning platform" memo Bloomberg via gHacks (11 Feb 2011): Nokia shares fall 14% on the Microsoft deal Nokia Q2 2011 results: smartphone sales 16.7 million BBC News (2012): Samsung overtakes Nokia Microsoft News (2013): Microsoft to acquire Nokia's devices & services business TechCrunch (2015): Microsoft writes down $7.6B of its Nokia acquisition Nokia (2015): Alcatel-Lucent offer; HERE sale to Audi, BMW and Daimler Reuters / Business Standard (2019): Nokia shares plunge Reuters / Gulf News (2023): Nokia changes its logo Fierce Network (2023): AT&T awards $14 billion contract to Ericsson Nokia (2024-2025): Infinera acquisition; Justin Hotard appointed CEO Broadband Breakfast / Data Center Dynamics (2025): Nvidia invests $1 billion in Nokia Capacity (July 2026): Nokia AI and cloud sales Microsoft Learn: Windows 10 Mobile end of support (Dec 2019); Nokia (2013): no new Symbian apps from 2014 PHOTO CREDITS Photos are from Wikimedia Commons and Openverse/Flickr under public domain, CC0, CC BY and CC BY-SA licences (cropped, colour-graded and animated). Full list with authors, licences and links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gFS44z... Nokia logo (2023) and world map: Wikimedia Commons, public domain. #Nokia #TechHistory #Documentary