The Nokia brand is returning to mobile phones and tablets

The Nokia brand is set to return to smartphones two years after the Finnish company sold its handset business amid competition from the iPhone and Android devices. HMD said the Microsoft transaction will close in the second half of 2016 and that the company plans to invest more than $500 million over the next three years to market the new products around the world. The announcement comes on a day when Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile Limited (FIH) chose to acquire the remainder of Microsoft's feature phone business assets.

A new company has been established to revive the Nokia handset and tablet brand.

Bottomline is: Nokia is not quite done with the mobile market, and we'll see Android-based, Nokia-branded phones and tablets as soon as they sort themselves out.

Got that? Good. Running HMD will be former Microsoft Mobile executives, including the new CEO Arto Nummela, former head of Microsoft Mobile's business for Greater Asia, Middle East and Africa.

In its most recent quarterly financial report, released in April, Microsoft said its mobile phone sales were sluggish, with a steep decline in Windows Phone purchases as well as a relatively high inventory of unsold Lumia smartphones.

A further deal with Nokia will give FIH the exclusive rights to the Nokia brand until 2024, which it will use on phones and tablets sold through a newly-created business, HMD Global.

Nokia is back in the mobile phone business, after a fashion.

As also announced today by FIH Mobile Limited (FIH), a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industries (trading as Foxconn Technology Group), the remainder of Microsoft's feature phone business assets, including manufacturing, sales and distribution, would be acquired by FIH.

Former mobile phone manufacturer Nokia has signed a deal that'll see a new Finnish company producing Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets. The best solution is to combine Nokia's design knowledge and expertise together with Foxconn's manufacturing togetherness and make one of the best hardware companies.

Source: The Nokia brand is returning to mobile phones and tablets