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| Nokia |
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki. Nokia is engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries, with over 132,000 employees in 120 countries, sales in more than 150 countries and global annual revenue of over €42 billion and operating profit of €2 billion as of 2010. It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones: its global device market share was 31% in the fourth quarter 2010, up from an estimated 30% in third quarter of 2010 but down from an estimated 35% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Nokia's estimated share of the converged mobile device market was 31% in the fourth quarter, compared with 38% in the third quarter 2010. Nokia produces mobile devices for every major market segment and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and W-CDMA (UMTS). Nokia offers Internet services such as applications, games, music, maps, media and messaging through its Ovi platform. Nokia's subsidiary Nokia Siemens Networks produces telecommunications network equipment, solutions and services. Nokia is also engaged in providing free digital map information and navigation services through its wholly owned subsidiary Navteq. Nokia also has greater dependency on England based company duo namely Symbian Corporation for its mobile operating systems and OVI for its mobile based application software development and distribution, which has made Nokia as highest selling mobile phone vendor within the last few years.
Nokia has sites for research and development, manufacture and sales in many countries throughout the world. As of December 2010, Nokia had R&D presence in 16 countries and employed 35,870 people in research and development, representing approximately 27% of the group's total workforce. The Nokia Research Center, founded in 1986, is Nokia's industrial research unit consisting of about 500 researchers, engineers and scientists. It has sites in seven countries: Finland, China, India, Kenya, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Besides its research centers, in 2001 Nokia founded (and owns) INdT – Nokia Institute of Technology, a R&D institute located in Brazil. Nokia operates a total of 9 manufacturing facilities located at Salo, Finland; Manaus, Brazil; Cluj, Romania; Beijing and Dongguan , China; Komárom, Hungary; Chennai, India; Reynosa, Mexico; and Masan, South Korea. Nokia's industrial design department is headquartered in Soho in London, UK with significant satellite offices in Helsinki, Finland and Calabasas, California in the USA.
Nokia is a public limited liability company listed on the Helsinki, Frankfurt, and New York stock exchanges. Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland; it is by far the largest Finnish company, accounting for about a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange (OMX Helsinki) as of 2007, a unique situation for an industrialized country. It is an important employer in Finland and several small companies have grown into large ones as its partners and subcontractors. Nokia increased Finland's GDP by more than 1.5% in 1999 alone. In 2004 Nokia's share of the Finnish GDP was 3.5% and accounted for almost a quarter of Finland's exports in 2003.
In recent years, Finns have consistently ranked Nokia as one of the best Finnish brands. In 2008, it was the 27th most respected brand among Finns, down from sixth place in 2007. The Nokia brand, valued at $29.5 billion, is listed as the eight most valuable global brand in the Interbrand/BusinessWeek Best Global Brands list of 2010 (first non-US company). It is the number one brand in Asia (as of 2007) and Europe (as of 2009), the 41st most admirable company worldwide in Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list of 2010 (third in Network and Other Communications Equipment, seventh non-US company), and the world's 120th largest company as measured by revenue in Fortune Global 500 list of 2010. As of 2010, AMR Research ranks Nokia's global supply chain number nineteen in the world. In July 2010, Nokia announced that their profits had dropped 40%. In the global smartphone rivalry, Nokia dominates the worldwide mobile markets, but remains fragile in the United States.
On 11 February 2011, Nokia announced a partnership with Microsoft which will mean most future Nokia smart phones will be powered by the Windows Phone 7 operating system.
Nokia released its first touch screen phone, the Nokia 7710, which was a huge success. In May 2007, Nokia announced that its Nokia 1100 handset, launched in 2003, with over 200 million units shipped, was the best-selling mobile phone of all time and the world's top-selling consumer electronics product. In November 2007, Nokia announced and released the Nokia N82, its first Nseries phone with Xenon flash. At the Nokia World conference in December 2007, Nokia announced their "Comes With Music" program: Nokia device buyers are to receive a year of complimentary access to music downloads. The service became commercially available in the second half of 2008.
Nokia Productions was the first ever mobile filmmaking project directed by Spike Lee. Work began in April 2008, and the film premiered in October 2008.
In 2008, Nokia released the Nokia E71 which was marketed to directly compete with the other BlackBerry-type devices offering a full "qwerty" keyboard and cheaper prices. Nokia announced in August 2009 that they will be selling a high-end Windows-based mini laptop called the Nokia Booklet 3G. On September 2, 2009, Nokia launched two new music and social networking phones, the X6 and X3. The Nokia X6 features 32GB of on-board memory with a 3.2" finger touch interface and comes with a music playback time of 35 hours. The Nokia X3 is a first series 40 Ovi Store-enabled device. The X3 is a music device that comes with stereo speakers, built-in FM radio, and a 3.2 megapixel camera. On September 10, 2009, Nokia unveiled a new handset, the 7705 Twist, a phone with a sports square shape that swivels open to reveal a full QWERTY keypad. The new mobile, which will be available exclusively through Verizon Wireless, features a 3 megapixel camera, web browsing, voice commands and weighs around 3.44 ounces.
On August 13, 2008, Nokia launched a beta release of "Nokia Email service", a new push e-mail service, since graduated as part of Nokia Messaging.
Nokia Messaging operates as a centralised, hosted service that acts as a proxy between the Nokia Messaging client and the user's e-mail server. It does not allow for a direct connection between the phone and the e-mail server, and is therefore required to send e-mail credentials to Nokia's servers. IMAP is used as the protocol to transfer emails between the client and the server.
Electronic products such as cell phones impact the environment both during production and after their useful life when they are discarded and turned into electronic waste. Nokia tops Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics of October 2010 that ranks 18 electronics manufacturers according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.
All of Nokia’s mobile phones are free of toxic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) since the end of 2005 and all new models of mobile phones and accessories launched in 2010 are on track to be free of brominated compounds, chlorinated flame retardants and antimony trioxide.
Nokia’s voluntary take-back programme to recycle old mobile phones spans 84 countries with almost 5,000 collection points. However, the recycling rate of Nokia phones was only 3–5% in 2008, according to a global consumer survey released by Nokia. The majority of old mobile phones are simply lying in drawers at home and very few old devices, about 4%, are being thrown into landfill and not recycled.
All of Nokia’s new models of chargers meet or exceed the Energy Star requirements. Nokia aims to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by at least 18 percent in 2010 from a baseline year of 2006 and cover 50 percent of its energy needs through renewable energy sources. Greenpeace is challenging the company to use its influence at the political level as number 85 on the Fortune 500 to advocate for climate legislation and call for global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2015.
Nokia is researching the use of recycled plastics in its products, which are currently used only in packaging but not yet in mobile phones.
Since 2001, Nokia has provided eco declarations of all its products and since May 2010 provides Eco profiles for all its new products. In an effort to further reduce their environmental impact in the future, Nokia released a new phone concept, Remade, in February 2008. The phone has been constructed of solely recyclable materials. The outer part of the phone is made from recycled materials such as aluminium cans, plastic bottles, and used car tires. The screen is constructed of recycled glass, and the hinges have been created from rubber tires. The interior of the phone is entirely constructed with refurbished phone parts, and there is a feature that encourages energy saving habits by reducing the backlight to the ideal level, which then allows the battery to last longer without frequent charges.