NMK-Studio/Shutterstock
If you grew up in the 1990s or early 2000s, Nokia probably holds a special place in your heart. The legendary Finnish brand is etched into the great halls of tech history, and in its prime, Nokia held remarkable phone brand loyalty. It was famous for its indestructible 3310 phone, along with customizable faceplates and a battery life that seemed to last for literal weeks. With today’s smartphone market as robust as it is, you might find yourself wondering about the current state of the company. The answer is a little mind-bending. The Nokia branding seen on consumer phones today isn’t exactly the same Nokia that’s currently building global telecommunications networks.
Let’s clear up the biggest misconception first. Nokia Corporation isn’t owned by a tech billionaire, a single parent company, or a shadowy conglomerate. It’s a huge, public company trading under the ticker symbol NOK, owned by a combination of shareholders. These shareholders include institutional investors like Vanguard, BlackRock, and Finland’s state-owned investment arm, Solidium.
Nokia is building the invisible tech that keeps the world connected. It’s manufacturing complex equipment and software that powers 5G and 6G cellular networks for wireless carriers across the globe. Thanks to its research division, Nokia Bell Labs, the company owns over 268,000 tech patents, and because it invented so many of the basic technologies that make cell phones work, virtually every modern phone maker, from the best down to the worst smartphone brands, has to pay Nokia a royalty fee to use them.
Who makes Nokia phones today, and where are they being made?
Nguyenducquang/Getty Images
Since Nokia stopped building cell phones, the ones sold under the brand name today are overseen by a different Finnish company called HMD (Human Mobile Devices) Global. To understand how this happened, you’ll have to rewind back to 2014. Nokia’s smartphone business was struggling against Apple and Android, leading to a doomed deal in which Microsoft bought and briefly owned Nokia’s phone division to push its new Windows smartphones. When that venture flunked, a group of former Nokia executives stepped up in 2016 to form HMD Global. They bought back the rights to design and market phones with the beloved Nokia logo. The mobile devices themselves are manufactured by Taiwanese-founded Foxconn, which also assembles iPhones.
For years, HMD offered Nokia-branded smartphones while simultaneously working the nostalgia angle by re-releasing classic models like the 3310 (complete with the iconic “Snake” game) for people seeking a digital detox. Inventory has since evolved. HMD currently designs and sells smartphones under its eponymous brand and reserves the Nokia name for basic feature phones, like the reimagined 3210, formerly known as the “candybar. In September 2025, Nokia extended its licensing contract with HMD by two to three years.
HMD outsources all physical manufacturing of Nokia phones to Foxconn and its subsidiaries. The phones are primarily assembled in China and India. Regardless of how you look at it, Nokia’s storied phone history has been on quite a journey.
