Nokia is the ruler of the mobile market, Forbes predicted in 2007. Nokia no longer exists. To understand, read the entire case study.

The Rise and Fall of Nokia, the World's Largest Mobile Manufacturer

Today, almost everyone has a smartphone. Popular smartphone brands include MI, Samsung, Oppo, RealMe, Vivo, Apple, and others. But there isn't a single one of us who doesn't recall the Nokia phone. That phone's snake game is still fresh in our minds. But don't you often wonder how a popular mobile brand that was once ubiquitous in every Indian home becomes quite scarce?

If you answered yes, this essay is for you since it will examine all aspects of the Nokia Corporation and determine what circumstances contributed to its rise and decline.

The Nokia Story - A Business Overview:

Nokia is a Finnish mobile phone manufacturer with its headquarters in Espoo. It dominated the telecommunications sector in the 1990s, but it steadily lost ground. Pekka Lundmark is the company's current CEO.

Nokia's History: A Timeline

Nokia begins operations as a pulp mill in 1865.

Nokia did not start out as a mobile phone manufacturer. Fredrick Idestam, a Finnish-Swedish mining engineer, founded a pulp mill in Tampere, Finland, in 1865. In a nearby town called Nokia, he constructed his second pulp plant. Fredrick formed a business partnership with his friend Leo Mechelin. Nokia was chosen by the two.

Nokia Corporation was founded in 1896.

When Fredrick resigned in 1896 and Leo took over as chairman, the company expanded into energy generation. Nokia Corporation was created in 1967 when Nokia amalgamated with Finnish Rubber Works and Kaapelitehdas (Cable plant).

Getting into the networking and radio industries in the 1970s:

The corporation decided to enter the networking and radio industries in the 1970s. Nokia Corporation became a major producer of military equipment in Finland. It also began producing professional mobile radios, switches, capacitors, and other electronic components. When Kari Kairamo took over as CEO of Nokia in 1977, the business purchased a number of television companies, including Salora and Luxor AB, and rose to become Europe's third-largest television producer.

Nokia has been expanding its activities, acquiring Ericsson's system section as well as Mobira, a mobile phone startup. However, following CEO Kari's suicide and the closure of the Kaapelitehdas subsidiary, then-CEO Simo Vuorilehto implemented a reorganization plan in 1990. Nokia suffered significant losses as a result of this.

Jorma Ollila, Nokia's second CEO, was instrumental in transforming the corporation into a telecom company. The telecom industry prospered, and Nokia made a substantial profit.

Nokia's Success and Growth

• Nokia released the Mobira Cityman 900, their first fully portable phone, in 1987. In 1992, Nokia released the first GSM phone, the Nokia 1011, and in October 1998, Nokia became the best-selling mobile phone brand.

• Nokia generated $20 billion in profits and revenue in 1998 alone.

• In the year 2000, Nokia Corporation employed around 55k people.

• Nokia was able to capture a large portion of the global telecommunications market in over 130 nations.

• Nokia made a significant contribution to the Finnish economy during the decade 2000. It accounted for 4% of Finnish GDP and 21% of total exports from the country.

• With the Nokia 3600/3650, gradually expanded into camera phones.

• In 2007, Nokia was also named Best Mobile Imaging Device.

• In 2009, it was ranked 85th on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest corporations.

Nokia's success is due to the youth market and fashion-conscious customers.

Nokia's creators acknowledged that one of the main reasons for the company's success over Motorola and Ericson was its ability to cater to the youth market. Nokia models came in a variety of colors and back covers to appeal to the youth and fashion-conscious buyers.

Rapid growth in the mobile phone industry

The mobile phone industry grew rapidly in the 1990s. Nokia's early leaders were savvy enough to recognize the needs, and they introduced GSM calling, camera phones, popular games on the device, and other features that helped the business capture a large market in many nations.

Nokia and Failure: 

• Nokia announced the Nokia N8 trials in 2010 however, the project was delayed, resulting in backlash.

• It was also pushed out by tough competition from companies like Apple and Google.

• Nokia has decided to work with Microsoft on the operating system for smartphones. Nokia's market share shrank as a result of this agreement. Nokia suffered its worst loss in the previous nineteen years in 2011.

• Nokia's stock prices plummeted, and the company was forced to lay off about 10,000 employees to save money.

The Future of Learning

Nokia's case study contains a wealth of information. The first is that you must continue to innovate no matter how much you develop. We identified a lack of innovation as a major reason for its failure to keep up with prospective competitors. Second, the corporation suffered from arbitrary decisions and excessive bureaucracy in management. As a result, any organization must avoid them.

Last Thoughts

Despite this, Nokia is still attempting to resurrect 5G technologies. It will be fascinating to see if the 5G concept can help it gain market share or if it will fail like prior attempts.