Nokia announced Sunday “plans to change its brand identity for the first time in nearly 60 years, complete with a new logo,” as the telecoms equipment maker focuses on strong growth.
The new logo consists of five different shapes that form the word “Nokia”. The old logo’s signature blue has been dropped for a range of colors depending on use.
“There was an association with smartphones, and at present we are a business technology company,” said Pekka Lundmark, CEO, on the eve of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC), which opens in Barcelona, on Monday, and continues until March 2, to “Reuters”. .
Three-stage strategy
After taking over the top job at the troubled Finnish company in 2020, Lundmark put together a three-phase strategy: repositioning, acceleration and scale. With the reset phase now complete, Lundmark said, “phase two has begun.”
While Nokia still aims to grow its service provider business, selling equipment to telecom operators, its main focus is now on selling equipment to other companies.
Lundmark added, “We achieved very good growth of 21% last year, which currently represents about 8% of our sales, or approximately two billion euros ($2.11 billion), and we want to double this number as quickly as possible.”
India is the fastest market
Big tech companies have partnered with telecoms equipment makers such as Nokia to sell private 5G networks and gears for automated factories to customers, mostly in the manufacturing sector. Nokia plans to review the growth trajectory of its various businesses and consider alternatives, including divestment.
“The signal is very clear, we just want to work in businesses where we can see global leadership,” Lundmark said. The telecoms equipment market is under pressure with the overall environment dampening demand from high-margin markets such as North America, which has been replaced by growth in low-margin India, prompting rival Ericsson to lay off 8,500 employees.
“India is our fastest growing market and has lower margins, and this is a structural change,” Lundmark said, adding that “Nokia expects North America to become stronger in the second half of the year.”
