Pedestrians walk past Nokia's flagship store in Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, east China, April 3, 2013. The retail store, which is Nokia's only stand-alone flagship store and the largest around the world, was found closed in recent days. (Xinhua/Lai Xinlin)
HELSINKI, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Finnish technology company Nokia has for the first time confirmed that it plans to re-enter the mobile handset market, two years after the sale of its mobile device business to Microsoft.
In an interview with German magazine Manager, company CEO Rajeev Suri said that Nokia is looking for a suitable partner to re-enter the business.
The company's production of handsets under the brand of Nokia would begin at the earliest during the second half of 2016, according to an agreement with Microsoft.
Suri said Nokia would challenge Microsoft on the handset market in the same way as in the production of tablets. Nokia would handle the designing itself and would give a license to another company to handle production.
The combined photo shows that the logo of Nokia (top, taken on Sept. 8, 2013) installed in the former Nokia headquarters in Espoo, Finland, has been replaced by the logo of Microsoft (bottom, taken on April 26, 2014). Nokia announced on Friday that it had substantially completed the sale of its devices and services departments to Microsoft. (Xinhua/Li Jizhi)
The Nokia brand tablets license was given to Foxconn, based in Taiwan, China.
Suri said German automakers like Audi, BMW and Daimler Benz have shown interest in obtaining the map service HERE. "Anyone who would be able to improve that business on a long term basis is a good buyer," he said.
