Nokia: From Paper to Plastics

The last thing anyone thinks of when they hear the name Nokia is paper products. But in 1865, mining engineer Fredrik Idestam established a pulp mill in the town Tampere and started to manufacture paper. Three years later, Idestam built a second mill near the town of Nokia which had better hydropower production, and thus a legacy was started.

Fast forwarding to present day, Nokia has become a multinational communications corporation. As the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, its global device market share is about 38% as of Q3 2009. With sales in more than 150 countries and global revenue of 72.1 billion US$, Nokia has become one of the most admired brands worldwide as well as one of the best employers, supporting over 128,000 employees in 120 countries.

While Nokia has a solid line of business-centric phones, most of Nokia’s product line is multimedia based. Many of their phones sport at least a 2 Megapixel camera (some as high as 5), video recording and playback capabilities, music player, FM radio, Bluetooth and beautiful, vibrant screens. One thing that sets Nokia apart is the structural design of the phone. Many of them either flip, slide, twist or swivel, something most other phones don’t offer.

The line up of phones to be released by Nokia is nothing less than exciting. The N900, X3, X6 and XpressMusic 5530 are just a few reasons Nokia will be a huge player in the Smartphone market for the next couple of years at least. Who would have thought that opening a paper mill would create such a large and well-respected mobile phone manufacturer.