Nokia Redesigns Logo, First Time In 60 Years, To Signal Strategy Shift From Phone Business

Nokia New Logo: CEO Pekka Lundmark makes announcement on the eve of MWC23 beginning Monday. He says people still think Nokia is a mobile phone brand, and the redesign aims to change the perception.

The new Nokia logo was unveiled on Sunday.

Source : LinkedIn/Pekka Lundmark

For the first time in nearly 60 years, Nokia announced Sunday that the company would change its brand identity. The revamp, which includes a brand new logo, is part of the Finnish 5G equipment maker's focus on growth and in "be in businesses where we can see global leadership". The logo is no longer blue. It now reflects a range of colours, and has five different shapes together forming the word 'NOKIA'. 

Nokia said the new logo has been designed as a "symbol of collaboration".   

"The company’s new logo is emblematic of an energized, dynamic, and modern Nokia, demonstrating its values and purpose. It has been designed as a symbol of collaboration, which Nokia believes to be critical for realizing the exponential potential of networks: unlocking gains in sustainability, productivity, and accessibility," the company said in a statement posted on its website.

"This is Nokia, but not as the world has seen us before. Our new brand signals who Nokia is today. We’re unleashing the exponential potential of networks and their power to help reshape the way we all live and work," Nokia said in a Twitter post.

This is Nokia, but not as the world has seen us before. Our new brand signals who Nokia is today. We’re unleashing the exponential potential of networks and their power to help reshape the way we all live and work. https://t.co/lbKLfaL2OI #NewNokia pic.twitter.com/VAgVo8p6nG

— Nokia #MWC23 (@nokia) February 26, 2023

Nokia Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark made the announcement on the eve of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023, which begins in Spain's Barcelona on Monday.

Taking to LinkedIn, Lundmark said: "I’m proud to share the renewed Nokia strategy and brand at #MWC23, targeting sustained long-term growth. Our new brand reflects who we are today: a B2B innovation leader that is pioneering the future of networks."

He added: "Today, we are unlocking the exponential potential of digital, to transform business, industry, and society with an opportunity for significant gains in productivity, sustainability, and accessibility. Our market-leading critical networking technology is increasingly needed by customers and partners in every industry." 

Along with the brand revamp comes with a set of new "pillars" that will help Nokia attain faster growth, the company said in the statement mentioned above.

Nokia is working on a "three-phased strategy to deliver sustainable, profitable growth". After the reset phase, it said, Nokia will "continue to accelerate" to become "an undisputed technology leader". Sunday's announcement is in line with Nokia’s long-term financial targets reiterated with Q4 2022 results.

To achieve the tragets, Nokia is working on four key "enablers" — developing future-fit talent; investing in long-term research, especially in key domains such as 6G; digitising own operations to improve agility and productivity; and refreshing the brand.

The company said its updated technology strategy details how networks will have to evolve so they meet demands of this era of metaverse.

"The qualities of traditional networking will be required to integrate with the flexibility and scalability of cloud," it said, adding that Nokia is "well positioned" to lead this transformation with the help of its "expansive best-of-breed portfolio and industry-leading disruptive research from Nokia Bell Labs".

Nokia No Longer Makes Mobile Phones

Nokia stopped making mobile phones almost a decade ago, and CEO Lundmark told news outlets the redesign aimed to stop people from associating the brand with its phones. 

“In most people’s minds, we are still a successful mobile phone brand, but this is not what Nokia is about,” Bloomberg quoted the CEO as saying in an interview on Sunday ahead of the MWC23. “We want to launch a new brand that is focusing very much on the networks and industrial digitalization, which is a completely different thing from the legacy mobile phones.”

In an interview to news agency Reuters, Lundmark said: "There was the association to smartphones and nowadays we are a business technology company."

He added: "The signal is very clear. We only want to be in businesses where we can see global leadership."