What did Nokia actually sell to Microsoft in 2013?
On September 3, 2013, Nokia agreed to hand its entire phone-making operation to Microsoft. Microsoft would pay EUR 3.79 billion for substantially all of Nokia's Devices and Services business, plus EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia's patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash.
The headcount says more than the price does. Roughly 32,000 people were expected to transfer to Microsoft at closing, including 4,700 in Finland and 18,300 working directly in the manufacturing, assembly and packaging of products around the world.
What stayed in Espoo was the Nokia name, the patent portfolio, the mapping unit and the network equipment business. Nokia the corporation did not go anywhere. It stopped being a phone company and kept everything else.
That distinction is what trips people up. The Nokia 3310 and the Nokia N-Gage came out of a division that has not belonged to Nokia since the sale went through.
How badly did the Microsoft phone deal fail?
Less than two years after that announcement, Microsoft quit. On July 8, 2015 it wrote down $7.6 billion against the Nokia acquisition, announced 7,800 layoffs and took a restructuring charge of roughly $800 million.
The write-down was larger than the euro price Microsoft had paid for the hardware business. It had bought the factories, the supply chain and tens of thousands of workers, and the phones coming out of them were not selling.
Microsoft said the job cuts were "primarily in the phone business", as TechCrunch reported in July 2015. The same report described a unit delivering lower revenue and lower unit volume than Microsoft had originally expected.
So the sequence people usually get wrong runs like this. Nokia did not go bankrupt, and Microsoft did not shut Nokia down. Nokia sold one division, Microsoft ran that division into the ground in under two years, and the Nokia name was left sitting in Finland with nobody making a phone to put it on.
Who put the Nokia name on phones after 2016?
On May 18, 2016, Nokia signed the agreement that has confused shoppers ever since. Nokia Technologies granted HMD global Oy, a newly founded company based in Finland, an exclusive global license to create Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets for the next ten years.
Nokia did not build those phones, did not staff HMD and did not run it. It licensed a trademark and collected royalties. Ramzi Haidamus, then president of Nokia Technologies, said so in the announcement: "Instead of Nokia returning to manufacturing mobile phones itself, HMD plans to produce mobile phones and tablets that can leverage and grow the value of the Nokia brand."
HMD spent the license years selling budget Android handsets and cheap 4G feature phones, with a run of retro reissues rebuilding the 3310 and the 3210 for buyers who remembered the originals. It was a real business, and it was nothing like the company that had once outsold everyone.
Anyone who walked into a US carrier store after 2016 and saw the Nokia logo on a box was looking at an HMD product. The relationship was a naming deal, closer to the way Motorola Razr V3 nostalgia gets recycled than to a corporate revival.
Can you buy a new Nokia phone in 2026?
Not a smartphone, and not in the United States. HMD discontinued the Nokia-branded smartphone range at the start of 2025 and moved the models into a legacy section of its site marked unavailable. Everything in its 2026 lineup carries the HMD name instead.
The ten-year license signed in 2016 was due to run out during 2026, and Nokia did not renew it for smartphones. In September 2025 the two companies extended it for Nokia-branded feature phones alone, by about three years, covering the inexpensive 4G handsets HMD builds in India and China. Press Trust of India reported that HMD holds 22.4 percent of India's feature phone market by volume and 30.7 percent by value, which is why that slice of the deal was the slice worth keeping.
So the status answer is layered. Nokia has not built a phone of its own since the Microsoft sale, Nokia-branded smartphones ended at the start of 2025, and the Nokia handsets still in production are feature phones aimed at India, Africa and the Middle East rather than at American buyers.
Where to find one today. The originals still turn up in quantity, because Nokia built them in enormous numbers and they refuse to break. Working 3310s, 8210s, 6310s and N-Gages circulate along with the parts that keep them alive: charger tips, back covers, swappable fascias and batteries. Most of it surfaces on Etsy's search page for vintage Nokia phones. Price tracks condition and completeness far more than model, so a scuffed handset on its own costs a fraction of the same phone boxed with its manual and charger, and any unit that has sat for 20 years needs a fresh battery before it holds a charge.
What does Nokia the company sell now?
Nokia is headquartered in Espoo, Finland and sells network equipment: the radios, routers and optical gear that carriers use to run mobile and fixed broadband networks. Its customers are telecom operators, governments and data center operators, not shoppers.
The scale is not that of a dead company. Nokia reported net sales of EUR 4.81 billion for the second quarter of 2026, up 8 percent as reported on the same quarter a year earlier, with a comparable operating margin of 9.0 percent, and it guided to comparable operating profit of EUR 2.1 billion to EUR 2.6 billion for the full year.
Chief executive Justin Hotard tied that to artificial intelligence rather than to handsets. "Q2 demonstrates our strategy is delivering results," he said in the second-quarter report, adding that "Team Nokia has focused on maximizing our opportunity in the AI supercycle."
Nokia now reports through two segments, Network Infrastructure and Mobile Infrastructure. Consumer handsets appear nowhere in that structure, and brand royalties are a rounding error against a business of that size.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Nokia phones still being made in 2026?
Nokia-branded smartphones are not. HMD, the Finnish company that has held the license to the Nokia name on phones since the agreement signed on May 18, 2016, discontinued the Nokia smartphone range at the start of 2025 and now sells under its own HMD brand. Nokia-branded feature phones are still produced under an extension agreed in September 2025 that runs about three years past the original 2026 expiry, and they are sold in markets such as India rather than the United States.
Who owns the Nokia brand today?
Nokia Corporation of Espoo, Finland owns the Nokia trademark and has never sold it. It licensed the name for phones and tablets to HMD in a ten-year deal signed on May 18, 2016, extended in September 2025 for feature phones only. Nokia's own money comes from network equipment, a business that reported net sales of EUR 4.81 billion in the second quarter of 2026 alone.
Why did Nokia stop making phones?
Nokia sold the business rather than closing it. On September 3, 2013 Nokia agreed to sell substantially all of its Devices and Services operation to Microsoft for EUR 3.79 billion, with a further EUR 1.65 billion for a patent license, and about 32,000 staff moved across. Microsoft wrote down $7.6 billion of that purchase on July 8, 2015 and announced 7,800 layoffs, which ended Nokia-designed handsets for good.