Vendor lineage
Nokia - from paper mill to network giant
A 160-year arc: rubber boots to world phone leader to one of the three companies that build the world's mobile networks.
Nokia is the industry's great shapeshifter: an 1865 Finnish paper mill that became the world's largest phone maker, lost that crown in the smartphone wars, and rebuilt itself as a networks powerhouse - absorbing Alcatel-Lucent and Bell Labs in 2016 and optical vendor Infinera in 2025.
The company that is now one of three able to build a national mobile network began as a wood pulp mill, licensed in May 1865 at a set of rapids in Tampere. The name comes from the second mill, built three years later beside the Nokianvirta because that river had better hydropower.
Idestam was not the first to try groundwood pulp in Finland. A mill founded near Vyborg five years earlier had performed badly and closed. He succeeded where his predecessor failed, which is the catalogue's oldest lesson appearing at the very start of a hundred-and-sixty-year company: being first is not the achievement, and the record usually remembers the second one anyway.
Rubber arrived in 1898 and cable in 1912, and the three merged formally in 1967 into a conglomerate that made boots, tyres and telephone wire. In 1981 the Nordic Mobile Telephone service opened - the first international cellular network anywhere, and the first that let a subscriber roam across borders - and Nokia built for it.
One number describes what happened next better than any narrative. The 2100 series of 1994 was planned for 400,000 units and sold twenty million. Nobody understood the scale of what was arriving, including the company that was about to take it: turnover went from 6.5 billion euros to 31 billion between 1996 and 2001, and by 2007 nearly half the handsets sold on earth were Nokia's.
The decisions on either side of that are the reason this company is worth studying. In 1992 Jorma Ollila chose to sell the rubber, the cable and the consumer electronics and stake everything on telecommunications - a conglomerate deliberately making itself a specialist. Twenty-one years later the specialist sold the very business it had bet on, and went back to building the equipment that carries other people's phones. The company has twice survived by abandoning what it was, which almost nothing in this section has managed once.
The contrast with Ericsson is instructive, since both are nineteenth-century workshops that became network suppliers. Ericsson sold to operators throughout and still does. Nokia went out to the public, won it completely, lost it, and came back to selling to operators. Same destination; the difference is that one of them holds the record for the most spectacular round trip in the industry.
Founding stories
Nokia
Nokia is the industry's great shapeshifter. Fredrik Idestam's 1865 wood-pulp mill by the Tammerkoski rapids became, through an 1967 three-way merger with Finnish Rubber Works and Finnish Cable Works, a conglomerate that made everything from boots to televisions. Jorma Ollila's 1992 decision to bet the entire company on telecommunications produced the most recognizable brand of the mobile decade - and when the smartphone wars took that crown away, Nokia shapeshifted again, into one of the three companies on earth that can build a national mobile network end to end.
The timeline
- A paper mill
Idestam grinds wood pulp on the Nokianvirta river; the 1967 merger with the rubber and cable works creates Nokia Corporation - cables being the thread that leads, decades later, to telecommunications.
- The Ollila pivot
New CEO Jorma Ollila sheds everything but telecom just as GSM launches - Nokia had carried the world's first GSM call in 1991 - and rides digital mobile from Nordic experiment to global standard.
- The crown
Nokia passes Motorola as the world's largest phone maker and holds the title for thirteen years - the 3310 and its kin become the most-manufactured electronics of their era.
- The burning platform
Stephen Elop's memo concedes the smartphone war; the Windows Phone alliance follows, and in 2014 the devices business itself goes to Microsoft for roughly EUR 5.44 billion. What remains is the networks company.
- Alcatel-Lucent, and Bell Labs
Nokia completes the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent - absorbing the French-American lineage and, with it, Bell Labs itself - having already taken full ownership of the Siemens network venture in 2013. The infrastructure giant is assembled.
- Optics, and a new captain
February 28, 2025: the Infinera acquisition closes, deepening optical networks for the AI-datacenter era. April 1: Justin Hotard, from Intel's Data Center and AI group, becomes President and CEO - a data-center executive for a data-center decade.
Nokia 6-K filings, 2025.
Flagship products and solutions
- Mobile NetworksRAN from 2G through 5G Advanced: one of the three vendors that build the world's mobile networks.
- Network InfrastructureFixed, IP routing, and - with Infinera - optical: the wireline half of the giant.
- Nokia Bell LabsThe inherited crown jewel: the laboratory of the transistor, information theory, and Unix, still inventing.
Key innovations
- GSM at scaleNokia turned the European digital standard into the world's phone system - and the phone into the first universal computer.
- Corporate reinvention as a disciplinePaper, rubber, cables, televisions, phones, networks: no company in this section has successfully changed what it fundamentally is more times.
Main markets
Nokia competes globally in mobile and fixed network infrastructure against Ericsson and Huawei, with growing data-center and defense lines - the Finnish giant's third act, captained since 2025 by a data-center specialist.
Analyst standing
- A permanent fixture of the telecom-infrastructure evaluations, and before that the defining vendor of the handset era the smartphone unmade.
- Nokia timeline: Fredrik Idestam set up a wood pulp mill in 1865; the name comes from the Nokianvirta river where he opened a second mill; Finnish Rubber Works was founded in 1898 and Finnish Cable Works in 1912, the three merging officially in 1967. The Nordic Mobile Telephone service launched in 1981 as the world's first international cellular network and the first to allow international roaming. In 1992 Jorma Ollila decided to focus on mobile phones and telecommunications and began selling the rubber, cable and consumer electronics divisions; the 2100 series of 1994 had a target of 400,000 units and sold 20 million; Nokia became world leader in mobile phones in 1998, and turnover rose from 6.5 billion to 31 billion euros between 1996 and 2001
- Idestam obtained his concession on 12 May 1865 for a groundwood mill at the Tammerkoski rapids, the date Nokia takes as its founding; the second mill was built near the town of Nokia because the river there had better hydropower. He was not the first to attempt groundwood production in Finland - a mill founded near Vyborg in 1860 performed poorly and soon ceased operations - but Idestam succeeded where his predecessor had failed
- History of Nokia: the preceding entities were Nokia Ab, the Finnish Rubber Works and the Finnish Cable Works; the 1868 mill was built near Nokia, fifteen kilometres west of Tampere on the Nokianvirta, for its better hydropower
- On the later arc: Nokia reached 49.4 per cent of the mobile phone market in 2007, and after the smartphone transition its handset division was sold to Microsoft in 2013, after which the company returned to networking equipment through the Siemens partnership and the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent