Nokia on Sunday announced plans to change its brand identity for the first time in nearly 60 years, with a new logo, as the telecommunications focuses on aggressive growth.
The new logo consists of five different shapes that make up the word Nokia. The emblematic blue color of the old logo has been replaced by a range of colors depending on the use.
“Before it was associated with smartphones, but now we are an enterprise technology company,” Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark told Reuters on the eve of a company presentation ahead of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), which is being held. in Barcelona from Monday to March 2.
After assuming the management of the Finnish company in 2020, Lundmark established a strategy in three phases: reset, accelerate and scale. With the reset stage complete, Lundmark said the second is starting.
Although Nokia continues to aim to grow its service provider business, in which it sells equipment to telecommunications companies, its main focus now is to sell equipment to other companies.
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“Last year we registered an excellent growth of 21% in the business sector, which currently represents 8% of our sales, that is to say, 2,000 million euros (2,110 million dollars) approximately”, declared Lundmark. “We want to reach double digits as soon as possible.”
Big tech firms have been partnering with telecommunications equipment makers like Nokia to sell private 5G networks and automated factory equipment to customers, mostly in the manufacturing sector.
Nokia plans to review the growth path of its different businesses and consider alternatives, including divestment.
“The signal is very clear. We only want to be in businesses where we can see global leadership,” Lundmark said.
Nokia’s move toward factory and data center automation will also see it take on big tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon.
“There will be multiple different types of cases, sometimes they will be our partners, sometimes they may be our customers, and I am sure there will also be situations where they will be competitors.”
The telecom equipment sales market is under pressure, with a macroeconomic environment weighing on demand from high-margin markets such as North America, which is being replaced by low-margin growth in India, which has pushed rival Ericsson to lay off 8,500 employees.
“India is our fastest growing market that has lower margins, it’s a structural change,” Lundmark said, adding that Nokia expects North America to be stronger in the second half of the year.
Reuters
