Finnish 5G equipment maker Nokia Oyj has redesigned its logo to prevent people from associating it with mobile phones – a business it abandoned nearly a decade ago.
The brand revamp, announced on Sunday, comes alongside new strategic pillars intended to accelerate growth as the world increasingly adopts fifth-generation mobile technology.
“In most people’s minds, we’re still a successful mobile phone brand, but that’s not what Nokia is about,” Chief Executive Officer Pekka Lundmark said in an interview ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday. “We want to launch a new brand that is very focused on the network and digitalization of the industry, which is very different from the old mobile phone.”
Nokia-branded phones are still sold by HMD Global Oy. HMD acquired the license after Microsoft Corp., which bought the business in 2014, stopped using the name.
Lundmark also said that Nokia will focus on increasing its market share in the company’s business that supplies wireless service providers with network equipment. Nokia now has the “ammunition and tools” to take market share without sacrificing margins, he said. It was helped by restrictions on Chinese rival Huawei Technologies Co., after several European governments blocked the company from selling parts for 5G networks.
Nokia is also looking to boost growth in its business of selling private 5G networks to enterprises. The company’s business reached 8% of the top share of Nokia last year, and the next target is to push the business “to double digits” in the area, mainly through organic growth and small acquisitions, the CEO said.
However, Nokia decided not to take the path of its main competitor Ericsson AB, whose $6.2 billion acquisition of Vonage Holdings Corp. launched with the same goal of growth on the corporate side.
Nokia recently earned an investment-grade BBB rating from S&P Global Ratings, ending a more than decade-long slog in junk territory. However, Lundmark sees more work to be done, particularly in terms of the company’s operating margins.
“We’re not happy with our location yet,” he said.
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