A wider path into the future for Nokia in the manufacturing business meant good things on the consumer side of things - but now we find, not necessarily on the health devices front.

The Finnish tech company announced on Thursday it would be initiating a "strategic review" of its digital health business, which includes smartwatches and fitness trackers, as well as smart scales.

This "may or may not result in any transaction or other changes", it says coyly.

Reuters reports that the company has launched a strategic review of the business unit created by the £150m acquisition of French company Withings, and has already made plans to cut over 400 jobs at its Finland HQ.

But it was never really about the hardware, but the data.

CEO Rajeev Suri said 2018 would see margins come under pressure, but that he anticipated 5G would boost Nokia in 2019 and 2020.

"Everyone can have his health station at home, feeding data to virtual hospitals", he said, providing "instant access to information and analytics previously restricted to medical professionals".

The vendor added its patent, brand partnerships and technology licensing businesses, also part of Nokia Technologies, were "not in the scope of this review".

Nokia formed the business unit in 2016 after acquiring Withings for $190 million, which gave it a foothold in largely consumer-focused hardware for the digital health space.

Given Nokia's relative good fortune with the smartphone and feature phone business of late, it's no surprise they're addressing the rest of their business. Indeed, IDC noted in the third quarter that the worldwide wearables market grew 7.3% year over year, but showed a clear trend toward so-called "smart wearables", or those defined by IDC as devices capable of running third party applications.