Nokia is planning to stage a major comeback in the smartphone market, according to several reports.
Two sources divulged the Finnish company's plans to Re/code, both claiming that Nokia plans to reenter the highly lucrative smartphone market. According to the sources, Nokia Technologies, one of the remaining business units left in Nokia after Microsoft bought its biggest divisions last year, has been secretly hiring new employees and have several products which are already under development.
Nokia Technologies is the division of the company that licensed over 10,000 patents of Nokia's past portfolio.
At this point, Nokia Technologies already launched two products since Microsoft bought the company's Lumia line. One of them is the new Android program dubbed as the Zlauncher, as well as their first-ever tablet design called the Nokia N1. The tablet is currently being manufactured in China under a different company, but is being marketed under the Nokia brand in the country. This might be what Nokia Technologies intends to do for their planned products, since they are prohibited from manufacturing any smartphone products under their deal with Microsoft.
But someone working inside the company claimed otherwise.
"They have a lot of great stuff in development," former Nokia executive Richard Kerris stated. "It gave me complete confidence that Nokia is a company that is not going away."
Kerris also worked as a consultant for Nokia as part of his last startup until 2014.
The ban in creating new smartphone products will reportedly lapse in the second half of 2016. Still, the brand is not allowed to sell the license to another manufacturer until the third quarter of next year.
If Nokia will make another smartphone product, it might create an Android- or Tizen-powered device.
