Nokia's logo change in the bigger picture - what's new?

No more Nokia phones. On Sunday, the Finnish maker announced plans to rebrand its identity for the first time in almost six decades.

"There was the association to smartphones, and nowadays we are a business technology company," Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark told Reuters in an interview.

The business update by the company was announced on the eve of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC), which opens in Barcelona on Monday and runs until March 2.

As the first step, the company changed its logo, dropping its 'iconic' blue color. The new logo consists of different shapes forming the word NOKIA with a variety of colors.

"In most people's minds, we are still a successful mobile phone brand, but this is not what Nokia is about," Lundmark said in an interview ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday. "We want to launch a new brand that is focusing very much on the networks and industrial digitalization, which is a completely different thing from the legacy mobile phones," Bloomberg reported.

This is Nokia, but not as the world has seen us before. Our new brand signals who Nokia is today. We’re unleashing the exponential potential of networks and their power to help reshape the way we all live and work. https://t.co/lbKLfaL2OI #NewNokia pic.twitter.com/VAgVo8p6nG

— Nokia #MWC23 (@nokia) February 26, 2023

Nokia intends to sell private 5G networks to companies

Interestingly, though Nokia released smartphones and feature phones in the market, they have not been made by the company ever since Microsoft's $7 billion acquisition of the company's Devices and Services division in 2014. HMD Global, one of many Nokia brand licensees, acquired the rights to use the Nokia brand for smartphones and tablets and is credited to be the maker.

But, though Nokia stopped selling phones years ago, its immense popularity continues to associate the brand with phones. The firm, which now considers itself to be a "business technology company," wants to change the perception among the public.

According to Lundmark, Nokia will increase growth in its business by selling private 5G networks to companies.

"We had very good 21 percent growth last year in enterprise, which is currently about eight percent of our sales, (or) two billion euros ($2.11 billion) roughly," Lundmark said. "We want to take that to double digits as quickly as possible."

Nokia will also focus on "seizing opportunities from sectors beyond mobile devices to monetize our IP and continue to invest in R&D for Nokia Technologies, implement new business models, such as as-a-Service, and develop ESG into a competitive advantage and become the "trusted provider of choice" in our industry," according to a blog post.

Reuters also reported that Nokia's move could see them lock horns with Microsoft and Amazon. "There will be multiple different types of cases; sometimes they will be our partners ... sometimes they can be our customers... and I am sure that there will also be situations where they will be competitors," added Lundmark.