BARCELONA, Feb. 26 (Reuters) – Nokia (NOKIA.HE) on Sunday announced plans to change its brand identity for the first time in nearly 60 years, complete with a new logo, as the telecom equipment maker targets aggressive growth.
The new logo consists of five different shapes that together form the word NOKIA. The iconic blue color of the old logo has been dropped for a range of colors depending on use.
“There was the association with smartphones and today we are an enterprise technology company,” CEO Pekka Lundmark told Reuters in an interview.
He was speaking ahead of a business update from the company on the eve of the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) which opens in Barcelona on Monday and runs until March 2.
After taking over the top job at the struggling Finnish company in 2020, Lundmark laid out a strategy with three phases: reset, accelerate and scale. With the reset phase completed, Lundmark said the second phase will begin.
While Nokia is still aiming to grow its service provider business, where it sells equipment to telecom companies, its main focus is now on selling equipment to other companies.
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“We had very good 21% growth in enterprises last year, which is currently about 8% of our sales, (or) about 2 billion euros ($2.11 billion),” Lundmark said. “We want to get that to double digits as soon as possible.”
Major technology companies are partnering with telecom equipment manufacturers, such as Nokia, to sell private 5G networks and equipment for automated factories to customers, mainly in the manufacturing sector.
Nokia plans to review the growth path of its various businesses and consider alternatives, including divestment.
“The signal is very clear. We only want to be in companies where we can see global leadership,” said Lundmark.
Nokia’s move into factory automation and data centers will also see them close the horns of major technology companies, such as Microsoft (MSFT.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O).
“There will be multiple types of business, sometimes it will be our partners… sometimes it could be our customers… and I am sure there will also be situations where they will be competitors.”
The telecom equipment sales market is under pressure from a macroeconomic environment that is eroding demand from high-margin markets such as North America and being replaced by low-margin growth in India, forcing rival Ericsson to lay off 8,500 employees.
“India is our fastest growing market with lower margins – this is a structural change,” Lundmark said, adding that Nokia expects North America to be stronger in the second half of the year.
($1 = 0.9482 euros)
Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Barcelona; Edited by Mike Harrison
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Principles of Trust.
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