54 Fun Facts About Nokia

Which sci-fi film made the curved Nokia 8110 famous as its hero's slide-open phone?

The Matrix gave Keanu Reeves's Neo an 8110, and Nokia's 1999 press release boasted that its phones created the vital link between the dream world and reality.

Nokia began as a pulp mill; in 1967 it merged with a rubber works and a maker of what?

Cables: the Finnish Cable Works had started an electronics division in 1960, and its radio telephones grew into Nokia's phone business.

Nokia took its name from what?

A Finnish town where its second mill stood gave the firm its name, and within a few years all of its operations had moved there.

Which German industrial giant agreed in 2006 to combine its network equipment business with Nokia's?

Siemens and Nokia formed Nokia Siemens Networks, and once Nokia sold its phones to Microsoft, that networks business became the heart of the company.

Which footwear did an old Nokia unit make that is still sold under the Nokian name?

Wellington boots came from Nokia's rubber business, which it shed as it chose to focus on telecoms.

In 1988, which Swedish company sold Nokia its computer division?

Ericsson's computer unit was part of CEO Kari Kairamo's electronics buying spree, but the computer business struggled and Nokia sold it off within a few years.

Which country became a major, highly profitable market for Nokia by the late 1970s?

Soviet Union: US worries that Nokia's digital telephone exchanges could reach the Soviets helped push Finland into the Cocom export-control group in 1987.

In the 1980s, Nokia bought factories across Europe making what, a business that later lost money?

Televisions: CEO Kari Kairamo bought them as he bet on consumer electronics, but his successors sold that business off to focus on telecoms.

In a 2011 memo, what did Nokia's CEO warn staff the company was standing on?

A burning platform: the memo told of a man on a blazing North Sea oil rig who jumps into icy water, and days later Nokia teamed up with Microsoft.

What was Nokia's first mobile phone, launched in 1982?

The Mobira Senator for cars came out under the Mobira name, which Nokia later dropped so that every phone it made carried the Nokia brand.

In 2008, Nokia said it would stop selling its phones in which country?

Japan: Nokia led the world phone market, yet it had won almost no share of Japan's, which local brands dominated.

Which US digital-map maker did Nokia agree to buy for $8.1 billion in 2007?

Navteq became a takeover target once satnav maker TomTom bid for its main rival, Tele Atlas, and its maps later grew into Nokia's Here service.

Which CEO, appointed in 1992, refocused Nokia on mobile phones and sold off its older businesses?

Jorma Ollila took over a loss-making Nokia and led its turnaround.

Which company did Nokia overtake in October 1998 to become the best-selling mobile phone brand?

Motorola lost the top spot as Nokia won young, fashion-minded buyers with phones like the 5110 and its swappable covers.

What were the colourful, replaceable back covers on the Nokia 5110 and 3210 called?

Xpress-on covers let owners restyle their phones, and third-party makers soon filled whole walls of phone shops with custom covers.

The Nokia 3210 was notable as the first mass-market phone without what?

A protruding external antenna: hiding it inside, along with T9 predictive text, helped make the 3210 a runaway hit.

The Nokia 3310 sold about 126 million units; which nickname did its toughness earn it?

Brick: the 3310's popularity and sturdiness made it so iconic that it was relaunched in 2017, nearly 17 years after its debut.

Which game was one of the four built into the original Nokia 3310?

Space Impact, a side-scrolling shooter against waves of aliens, was later recreated for other phones.

Which handy extra did Nokia build into its basic 1100 phone?

Flashlight: Nokia built the 1100 for first-time buyers in fast-growing markets such as India and China, and it became the world's most popular phone.

Which classic game did Nokia first preinstall on its 6110 phone?

Snake turned the phone into a pocket time-killer, and its sequel, Snake II, later came built into the Nokia 3310.

The Nokia tune is taken from Gran Vals, a guitar piece by which Spanish composer?

Francisco Tarrega wrote the waltz, and two Nokia executives picked out the short excerpt of it that became the famous ringtone.

Which headline feature did Nokia's 2013 Lumia 1020 smartphone carry?

A 41-megapixel camera: it combined pixels into sharper 5-megapixel photos and took over from the Symbian-based 808 PureView.

Nokia co-founded Symbian in 1998 with which PDA maker leading the effort?

Psion supplied the software: its EPOC operating system became Symbian, which stayed Nokia's main smartphone system until 2011.

Nokia's 7650, announced in 2001 with a built-in camera, was built around which new messaging format?

MMS let people send photos, and Nokia promised that by 2003 every new phone it launched would support these multimedia messages.

Nokia's billionth phone, a basic 1100 sold in 2005, went to a buyer in which African country?

Nigeria: the sale came as Nokia pushed affordable phones into growth markets such as Brazil, India, China and much of Africa.

Which German optics maker did Nokia partner with in 2005 for its camera phones?

Carl Zeiss optics became a selling point for Nokia camera phones and helped earn them a strong reputation for photography.

What was the N-Gage, released in 2003?

A phone-handheld game console hybrid, the N-Gage was mocked for its taco shape, and players had to pull out the battery just to change games.

Nokia's global market share peaked above 40% in late 2007, the year which rival handset launched?

iPhone sales trailed Nokia's at first, but Nokia was slow to respond to devices like it.

What was Maemo, developed by Nokia in 2005?

A Linux-based operating system, Maemo ran Nokia's internet tablets from 2005 and later merged with Intel's Moblin to become MeeGo.

What was Ovi, introduced by Nokia in August 2007?

An umbrella name for its Internet services, Ovi was Nokia's bid for new income from music, games and maps.

What was the name of Nokia's luxury handset division?

Vertu: Nokia sold 90% of its luxury brand to private equity firm EQT in 2012, and the British phone maker changed owners many times after that.

Which former Microsoft executive became Nokia's CEO in September 2010?

Stephen Elop had led Microsoft's business division, and he went back to Microsoft as a devices chief when it bought Nokia's phone business.

Which operating system did Nokia adopt for its smartphones under its February 2011 Microsoft partnership?

Windows Phone 7 replaced Symbian as Nokia's main smartphone software, and two years later Microsoft bought Nokia's phone business outright.

Which tech chief agreed in 2013 to buy Nokia's phone business for €5.44 billion?

Steve Ballmer called it a bold step into the future as he prepared to retire, but his successor later said he had voted against the deal.

Which French telecoms equipment maker did Nokia agree to buy in an all-stock deal in 2015?

Alcatel-Lucent cost about €15.6 billion in shares, and Nokia said the combined company would speed up its work on 5G networks.

Nokia sold its Here maps division in 2015 to a consortium of which three companies?

Audi, BMW and Daimler bought Here, whose business came mostly from licensing map data to other companies, particularly carmakers.

What was OZO, announced by Nokia in July 2015?

A 360-degree virtual reality camera, OZO was scrapped in 2017 as Nokia cut 310 jobs, blaming a slower-than-expected VR market.

Which connected-health company did Nokia buy in 2016?

Withings lost its own brand under Nokia, which wrote off the purchase before co-founder Éric Carreel bought the business back in 2018.

Which company, founded by former Nokia executives, began selling Nokia-branded phones under licence in 2016?

HMD won a 10-year deal to use the Nokia name, and its early launches included a revived Nokia 3310 in 2017.

In 2016, which Taiwanese electronics giant took over the factory making Microsoft's Nokia feature phones?

Foxconn's FIH Mobile unit took over the feature-phone plant in Hanoi, Vietnam, as Microsoft pulled out of the basic-phone business.

A 2019 Counterpoint study found Nokia-branded phones beat Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei at what?

Android updates: the phones ran pure Android, without the software changes many makers add, so new versions could reach them sooner.

In October 2020 Nokia won a NASA contract to build what?

A 4G network on the moon was meant to let astronauts make voice and video calls and send data during NASA's Artemis missions.

Why did Nokia change its logo in February 2023?

People still associated it with mobile phones, a business Nokia had left almost a decade earlier, so the new logo came with a new growth strategy.

Which former Intel executive succeeded Pekka Lundmark as Nokia's CEO in 2025?

Justin Hotard had led Intel's Data Center and AI Group, and Nokia said his expertise in AI and data centre markets was critical to its plans.

Which chip company took a stake in Nokia in October 2025 to collaborate on AI-RAN and 6G?

Nvidia invested $1 billion, and trials of Nvidia-powered AI-RAN products for Nokia's radio network range were expected to begin in 2026.

In which Finnish city are Nokia's headquarters?

Espoo is where Nokia moved its head office to Karaportti when its old headquarters, Nokia House, passed to Microsoft.

Which mining engineer established the pulp mill in 1865 from which Nokia grew?

Fredrik Idestam refused to take the firm into electricity, so that move came only after he retired in 1896 and his friend Leo Mechelin became chairman.

Nokia began in 1865 as a pulp mill on the rapids of which Finnish city?

Tampere got the mill just as industrialising Europe's appetite for paper was booming, which soon made the young firm a success.

What was Nokia's first fully portable mobile phone, launched in 1987?

Mobira Cityman 900 handsets cost 24,000 Finnish marks, and early mobile phones like it were first seen as yuppie products.

On which operator's network was the world's first GSM phone call made, in 1991?

Radiolinja ran the network, while Nokia supplied the equipment that the historic call used.

Which Nokia CEO, in charge from 2006, was fired in September 2010?

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was fired as Nokia struggled against newer smartphones, and the chairman said it was time for a leader with different skills.

Which famous New Jersey research lab became a Nokia subsidiary in 2016?

Bell Labs created the transistor and the first practical solar cell, and in 2023 Nokia announced plans to move it from Murray Hill to New Brunswick by 2028.

In 2009, fraudsters reportedly paid thousands of euros for some old Nokia 1100 phones; what could hacked ones do?

Read others' texts: reprogrammed 1100s could receive another person's SMS messages, including one-time bank codes, but only models with firmware from Nokia's German factory.

Which Nokia smartphone range, launched in April 2005, was its flagship multimedia line?

Nseries phones such as the N95, voted Europe's best mobile imaging device in 2007, led the range until Nokia dropped letters from its model names in 2011.