Nokia Is Trying to Make a Comeback, Again

HMD Global has hired the former Rovio CEO Pekka Rantala to be its new chief marketing officer — and he hopes to see Nokia-branded phones made a strong comeback.

“I love Nokia, I love what it stands for and I’d love to see it rise again,” Rantala told CNET in a recent interview.

HMD Global, a Finnish-company made up of ex-Nokia and ex-Microsoft employees, bought the licensing rights required to start producing Nokia-branded smartphones in May of this year, according to Reuters.

And with the addition of Nokia veteran Rantala, it seems like HMD is slowly putting together the pieces to foster a Nokia comeback.

Rantala formerly worked at Nokia for 17 years — from 1994 to 2011 — before briefly becoming the CEO for Angry Birds-developer Rovio. In the year as Rovio’s CEO, however, the company was forced to restructure and cut hundreds of jobs.

But as a longtime employee of Nokia — who is probably familiar with the company’s brand and image — Rantala might just be the perfect person to spearhead a Nokia comeback.

And that’s not to mention that most people love Nokia — and many of us have fond memories of their seemingly indestructible devices that once dominated the phone market.

In 2014, Nokia sold their entire phone business to Microsoft, who has largely abandoned the venture. Nokia now almost exclusively works on telecommunications and network equipment, Reuters reported.

HMD Global will have the ability to use Nokia’s brand and access their patents in exchange for royalty payments, AndroidAuthority reported.

The Nokia-branded HMD phones and tablets will reportedly run on Android operating systems, and will be manufactured by a subsidiary of Foxconn Technology — a Taiwanese-based electronics company.

But there is currently no word as to when the Nokia phones will actually hit the marketplace, Reuters reported.