The history of Nokia

The Nokia Corporation, based in Finland, are currently the biggest cell phone manufacturer in the world, but like so many other major companies, they started out doing something very different indeed.

When Finnish engineer and paper manufacturer Fredrik Idestam hit up his friend Leo Mechelin for some extra investment capital to save his flailing paper mill business in return for a share of future profits, he could have had little idea that they would be starting a company that would go on to be one of the biggest in the world. The new firm, which they decided to call The Nokia Company was named after the river that ran past one of Idestams paper mills, which also lent its name to a nearby town. Their first major expansion took place in 1902, when they decided to go into the electricity production business, a growth industry which was to go on to prove far more profitable than making paper.

But by the end of World War I, the Nokia company was on its knees, and was bought out by galoshes manufacturer Finnish Rubber Works. A few years later, the company also bought Finnish Cable Works, who made cables for the telecommunications and electricity supply industry. The three firms merged in 1967 to form the Nokia Corporation. Over the years, Nokia were concerned with making a large variety of products including rubber and paper products, aluminium, electricity generators, electronic components, cables, and consumer electronics amongst other things.

However, by the 1990s, they decided to sell off or abandon their other business interests in order to provide greater resources for the telecommunications side of the business, which they saw as being the future of the company.

The first electronic device manufactured by Nokia was a pulse analyser, to be used in nuclear power plants. In partnership with another Finnish firm, Salora Oy, they developed VHF radio technology, and started the first Finnish radio telephone network, called ARP, which was the most successful of its kind in the world at the time.

In the late 70s, Nokia pioneered the worlds first digital telecommunications switch, the DX200. In 1984 they bought out Salora Oy and formed a new mobile telecoms division, entitled Nokia-Mobira Oy, releasing their first product that same year, the Mobira Talkman, which was a transportable phone around the size of a briefcase that could be charged from a car cigarette lighter socket.

In 1987, they introduced the Mobira Cityman 900, one of the first hand held mobile phones, which was a huge success despite its ridiculous weight, bulky dimensions, and exorbitant price tag.

Nokia-Mobira Oy changed their name to Nokia Mobile Phones in 1989, and went on to dominate the mobile phone market of the 1990s and 2000s. Almost incidentally, thanks to the massive popularity of their camera phones, Nokia is now the biggest camera manufacturer in the world, ahead of such established names as Nikon and Olympus.

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