{"id":487563,"date":"2026-02-20T11:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T11:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/487563\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T11:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T11:53:12","slug":"nokia-built-a-20000000000-empire-that-had-nothing-to-do-with-phones-and-almost-no-one-noticed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/487563\/","title":{"rendered":"Nokia built a $20,000,000,000 empire that had nothing to do with phones and almost no one noticed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nokia spent more than a decade as the best-selling phone-maker in the world, but these days it makes its money in a very different way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you grew up during the late 1990s and early 2000s, you\u2019re probably all too familiar with Nokia phones.<\/p>\n

Over the years, it released some iconic handsets, including the 3310<\/a>, which made an unlikely comeback in 2017, and the 1100, which is the best-selling phone ever made, with more than 250 million units sold worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, things began to go wrong for the company in 2007 with the introduction of the very first iPhone<\/a>, but just because Nokia\u2019s phones are no longer top sellers, it doesn\u2019t mean the company isn\u2019t thriving.<\/p>\n

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Nokia rebuilt itself after its phones stopped selling <\/p>\n

Nokia was founded all the way back in 1865 and was originally a pulp mill before moving into electronics and cable-making decades later.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1982, it launched the Mobira Senator car-phone, which helped pave the way for its wildly successful range of cellphones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Nokia<\/a>Santeri Viinam\u00e4ki<\/p>\n

During its peak, in the early 2000s, the company absolutely dominated the industry with a 49.4 percent market share in 2007.<\/p>\n

But then it experienced a catastrophic fall, partly due to the introduction of newer, smarter technology<\/a>, like the Apple iPhone, and by early 2013, Nokia had just 3 percent market share.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, while some companies might have decided to call it a day, Nokia was made of sterner stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2013, it sold off its cellphone division to Microsoft for $7 billion and decided to instead focus on telecommunication infrastructure and network hardware.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Finnish-based company also had tens of thousands of patents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alongside that, its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in 2016 turned it into the second-largest telecom equipment company in the world.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the company was earning more than $2 billion just from its patent licensing and had a total revenue of more than $20 billion. <\/p>\n

\"Nokia<\/a>Nokia<\/p>\n

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The company just got a $1bn investment from Nvidia <\/p>\n

And the future is looking just as bright for Nokia, having recently received an investment of $1 billion from chip-maker Nvidia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nvidia has partnered with Nokia to help usher in the transition from 5G to 6G and help develop the next generation of AI-powered mobile networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next leap in telecom isn\u2019t just from 5G to 6G \u2013 it\u2019s a fundamental redesign of the network to deliver AI-powered connectivity, capable of processing intelligence from the data center all the way to the edge,\u201d Nokia CEO Justin Hotard said in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Nokia<\/a>Nokia<\/p>\n

\u201cOur partnership with NVIDIA, and their investment in Nokia, will accelerate AI-RAN innovation to put an AI data center into everyone\u2019s pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Super-fast 6G could be<\/a> introduced as soon as 2028, according to Qualcomm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To begin with, the tech will be introduced to prototype devices, known as pre-commercial devices, before it\u2019s rolled out to the mass market.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nokia: the rise, fall, and reinvention\u00a0<\/p>\n

1865: Nokia is founded as a pulp mill in Finland<\/p>\n

1992: Bets everything on making cellphones<\/p>\n

1998: Becomes the world\u2019s largest phone maker\u00a0<\/p>\n

2000: Nokia 3310 launches, and it hit global dominance with more than 40% market share<\/p>\n

2007: iPhone changes the game and Nokia underestimates the software shift<\/p>\n

2009: Nokia N97 fails to compete. Profits collapse<\/p>\n

2011: Partners with Microsoft and adopts Windows Phone<\/p>\n

2013: Sells mobile division to Microsoft for $7B and exits the smartphone industry<\/p>\n

2016: Acquires Alcatel-Lucent. Becomes a telecom infrastructure giant<\/p>\n

2024: Generates $20B+ revenue, powered by 5G patents<\/p>\n

2025: Nvidia invests $1B to build AI-powered telecom networks<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nokia spent more than a decade as the best-selling phone-maker in the world, but these days it makes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,48,190,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-487563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}