Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile and services division for $7.2 billion USD had some stipulations that would not play nicely when Nokia's future was concerned in the smartphone industry race. The terms stated that Nokia will not be able to roll out new handsets till the year 2016. Additionally, Nokia's brand name will be removed from Lumia handsets and be replaced with the name, 'Microsoft Mobile'.
Now that 2016 is about to commence, the former mobile phone giant has decided to try its luck once more in the smartphone industry, which is currently being dominated by Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi.
According to SC Daily, Mike Wang, Nokia's Chairperson has said that the tech firm is in the midst of setting up R&D facilities bases in China to start mass production of Android smartphones. These smartphone are most likely going to be available to purchase during Q2, 2016. The last mobile device that Nokia released was its N1 tablet. The tablet came with a pre-order price of $249 and possessed aesthetics that were very similar to Apple's iPad Mini.
Nokia's road to success in the smartphone industry will be far from easy since it will have to square off against leading tech giants such as Apple and Samsung. Samsung has already gained several partners to incorporate the company's superior 14 nm FinFET architecture in their chipsets. If Nokia wants to gain the upper hand, then partnering up with firms like the former and MediaTek will allow the company to gain a few paces to catch up to the competition.
Currently, Nokia has not stated details on what kind of device it is going to release in 2016. Since the company will not be receiving licensing rights from Microsoft to assimilate the software giant's Windows Mobile in the firm's handsets, Nokia will have no choice but to settle for Google's Android Lollipop platform.
