Update:
And, Nokia has already released a statement confirming what we told you below. The comments reported in a Chinese blog were incorrectly attributed to Mike Wang. Nokia also has reiterated its position that it doesn’t have any current plans to manufacture or sell smartphones. So, it is Nokia N1 route all the way for smartphones too that too in 2016. Read more here.
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Nokia notes recent news reports claiming the company communicated an intention to manufacture consumer handsets out of a R&D facility in China. These reports are false, and include comments incorrectly attributed to a Nokia Networks executive.
Nokia reiterates it currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets.
Thanks Mike and Sid for the tip. Cheers!!
It is funny sometimes to see how the rumor-mill works!! Nokia will return to Android smartphones is a well-known fact and that info had come from the proverbial Horse’s mouth. Nokia Technologies president (the business that is responsible for Nokia’s devices and brand-licensing ambitions), Ramzi Haidamus had confirmed it some months ago, right at the time of launch of Nokia N1.
Nokia is prohibited from making smartphones until 2016 under the terms of the sale of its handset business to Microsoft. But Mr Haidamus said that “we will be looking at going into the cell phone licensing business post-Microsoft rights”.
But a latest rumor claims another official confirmation of Nokia returning to smartphones and cites a Nokia Network executive Mike Dang as the source. Even the R&D center located in Sichuan that has existed since long and caters only to Networks business has been wrongly painted as some proof of Nokia planning a production base in Sichuan.
We got many tips about this story and while we certainly believe that Nokia is planning and executing the plan well to return to smartphone industry via brand-licensing to ODM route in 2016, one must know that a Network exec won’t make an official statement regarding “Nokia Technologies” plans.
