Nokia won't produce phones, but could return to smartphone business by brand-licensing

Wouldn’t it be great if Nokia started manufacturing phones again? If the recent reports are to be believed, the Finland-based company is planning to do just that. Citing its sources, Re/code earlier this week reported that the company will be returning to the phone manufacturing business by 2016, and would launch a couple of Android smartphones. Too bad, that’s not happening. Nokia announces today that it doesn’t intend to return to the smartphone manufacturing business, squashing all the recent reports that claimed otherwise.

On its website (via Reuters), the company notes that the recent news reports that claimed that Nokia expressed its intention to manufacture consumer handsets out of an R&D facility in China “are false". "Nokia reiterates it currently has no plans to manufacture or sell consumer handsets.", it further says.

The company, instead, is looking at inking deals with other hardware manufacturers -- a business model which is also known as brand licensing -- to get back to the smartphone business. It is worth pointing out that Nokia is contractually obligated to not return to the phone manufacturing business before 2016. The company sold its mobile division, devices and services to Microsoft last year for a multibillion-dollar deal.

Nokia Technologies, one of the three divisions of the Finland-based company which wasn’t part of the acquisition by Microsoft, is widely rumored to be working on a new phone. The division is said to have more than 10,000 patents. So despite it denying any such possibility, the company could get back into the smartphone business at some point.

As of present, though, the company is bound to look to brand licensing if it wants to get back into the smartphone business. Last year the company announced the N1, an Android-powered tablet. The company had partnered with a third-party firm to manufacture and sell the device in China.

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