Good old Nokia plans a comeback to mobile market in 2016: Report

Nokia, the company that once dominated the Indian phone market, had succumbed to the fierce competition from Samsung and Apple. While we thought the company has already turned to ashes, a new report now claims that Nokia is far from dead and planning to make a comeback in 2016. Citing two sources related to the matter, Re/Code reveals that the company will join the mobile market as early as next year. It isn’t just mobile market, but Nokia reportedly also plans to foray into ‘ambitious technology product space’ including virtual reality. Now, if you are wondering how is it possible since Nokia **sealed the deal with Microsoft** and sold its devices and services to the software giant. The report says that this move is driven by Nokia Technologies, which is the smallest of the three businesses that remain after the Microsoft deal. Nokia Technologies is known for licensing the company’s portfolio of over 10,000 patents. “Unlike other patent houses that do little more than license intellectual property, Nokia Technologies has designed new products and licensed them to other companies. So far, these ambitions have been small in scale,” adds the report. This division launched two products namely, Zlauncher program and the N1 Android tablet design that is being sold in China by another manufacturer using the Nokia brand name. It is believed that this tactic will be used by Nokia to bring other devices in the market too. Richard Kerris, a former Nokia executive has told the news site that ‘Nokia is a company that is not going away’ and ‘people will be blown away if some of the stuff he saw comes to market’. However, all this won’t come until late 2016, owing to some negotiations between Nokia and Microsoft. The Finnish company can sell smartphones under the Nokia brand only after December 2015. “The company can’t license its brand for any smartphones until after Q3 2016. The N1 appears to take advantage of a loophole that allows for the Nokia brand on tablets,” points out ReadWrite. Recently, Nokia was also rumoured to have agreed to acquire **Alcatel-Lucent** in a bid to take on Ericsson. The company is also considering to sell off Here Maps.