Companies / Telecoms & Technology SMARTPHONES HMD Global has big plans for Nokia in Africa BL PREMIUM

Finnish company HMD Global, which makes and sells mobile phones under the Nokia brand, wants to make Nokia the third-biggest smartphone company in Africa and globally, the firm’s management team in SA says. HMD is a latecomer to the smartphone market. It started selling Nokia smartphones in 2017 after buying the licence for Nokia’s phones and tablets from Microsoft in 2016. Its competitors have been in the game for much longer. According to data from research and advisory firm Gartner, Samsung, Apple and Huawei hold the top three places respectively in the global smartphones market. "Our view, in terms of the positioning of the company, is that it’s the second chapter… We never went away, we were always there in some shape or form – significantly so in feature phones – but the real [opportunity] for us is to start winning in the smartphone space," said HMD GM for southern Africa Shaun Durandt. The company, which shipped 70-million units globally by the end of 2017, aimed to win mark...