The iconic Nokia ringtone, the Snake game that consumed hours of childhood, the phone that could survive a fall onto concrete—those days seemed gone. iPhone arrived, Samsung dominated, and the world assumed Nokia had vanished.
Wrong. Nokia never truly failed. In fact, every iPhone purchase contributes a fraction to Nokia. Today, the company generates €19 billion in revenue, a 60% growth over the past decade. Nokia even launched a 4G network on the Moon. Yes—the Moon. While phones faded, Nokia moved to the stars.
NVIDIA, the world’s AI powerhouse, needed Nokia so badly that it invested $1 billion, making Nokia the second-largest shareholder. Meanwhile, Microsoft was handed a sinking ship when it bought Nokia’s phone business.
Nokia isn’t merely a company—it’s a survival machine. 160 years, countless crises, and still standing.
In 2014, Nokia sold its phone division to Microsoft for $7.2 billion. Three years later, Microsoft offloaded that same business for $350 million—a 95% loss. This isn’t a story of failure; it’s a masterclass in strategic exits.
Despite selling its phone business, Nokia remains embedded in daily life. Every time a phone connects to a network—whether checking messages, scrolling social media, or streaming content—Nokia’s technology is at work. Its antennas, towers, and networking equipment form the backbone of modern communication.
Nokia is the second-largest mobile network equipment company globally. In India, networks like Airtel, Jio, and Vi rely on Nokia’s technology, generating €7.7 billion in revenue.
Next, network infrastructure—data centers that power Netflix, YouTube, Google, and AI platforms—depend on Nokia’s routers, switches, and optical cables. This sector brings in €6.52 billion, covering 20% of the global market. Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services are all Nokia clients.
Third, Nokia provides cloud and network services, ensuring towers and data centers operate efficiently, contributing €3.8 billion in revenue.
Fourth, Nokia Technologies licenses patents and earns €1.1 billion passively.
Total revenue for FY 2024: €19.22 billion.
This transformation wasn’t overnight. In 2013, Nokia teetered on bankruptcy. A loss of €1.7 billion in one quarter, a 96% stock drop, and thousands of layoffs painted a grim picture. Most companies would cut costs cautiously—Nokia bet aggressively.
First bold move: sell the phone business, but retain 30,000 patents covering 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies. Microsoft acquired plants, employees, and the Lumia brand, but only non-exclusive 10-year licenses for patents. Nokia continued collecting €1.1 billion annually in royalties while pocketing €5.5 billion from the sale.
Second bold move: acquire Alcatel-Lucent for €15.6 billion in 2015. Critics called it overpaying. In return, Nokia gained Bell Labs—a hub of innovation responsible for the transistor, Unix, laser tech, and 11 Nobel prizes—and cutting-edge IP for data center networks powering the world’s tech giants.
Third bold move: overhaul culture. 99% of employees and 80% of the board were replaced. The old corporate arrogance was removed to survive and thrive.
By 2025, Nokia’s audacity paid off. NVIDIA invested $1 billion to integrate AI with Nokia’s Radio Access Networks (AI RAN). Towers gained intelligence—adjusting signals, optimising traffic, reducing energy consumption, and preventing network failures. By 2030, the AI RAN market could reach $200 billion. A 20% share could double Nokia’s revenue from a single innovation.
Seven industries, seven transformations. Each time the world declared Nokia dead, it rose stronger. From childhood nostalgia to Moon 4G and AI-powered networks, Nokia has repeatedly rewritten its destiny.
If your core product is sinking, would you dare to sell it and reinvent the future?
The story of Nokia is not just survival—it’s the ultimate playbook in corporate audacity.
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