Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinationalcommunications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki. Nokia is engaged in the manufacturing of mobile devices and in converging Internet and communications industries, with over 132,000 employees in 120 countries, sales in more than 150 countries and global annual revenue of over €42 billion and operating profit of €2 billion as of 2010. It is the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones: its global device market share was 31% in the fourth quarter 2010, up from an estimated 30% in third quarter of 2010 but down from an estimated 35% in the fourth quarter of 2009. Nokia's estimated share of the converged mobile device market was 31% in the fourth quarter, compared with 38% in the third quarter 2010. Nokia produces mobile devices for every major market segment and protocol, including GSM, CDMA, and W-CDMA (UMTS). Nokia offers Internet services such as applications, games, music, maps,media and messaging through its Ovi platform. Nokia's subsidiary Nokia Siemens Networks produces telecommunications network equipment, solutions and services Nokia is also engaged in providing free digital map information and navigationservices through its wholly owned subsidiary Navteq. Nokia also has greater dependency on England based company duo namely Symbian Corporation for its mobile operating systems and OVI for its mobile based application software development and distribution, which has made Nokia as highest selling mobile phone vendor within the last few years.
Nokia has sites for research and development, manufacture and sales in many countries throughout the world. As of December 2010, Nokia had R&D presence in 16 countries and employed 35,870 people in research and development, representing approximately 27% of the group's total workforce. The Nokia Research Center, founded in 1986, is Nokia's industrial research unit consisting of about 500 researchers, engineers and scientists. It has sites in seven countries: Finland, China, India, Kenya, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Besides its research centers, in 2001 Nokia founded (and owns) INdT – Nokia Institute of Technology, a R&D institute located in Brazil. Nokia operates a total of 9 manufacturing facilities located at Salo, Finland; Manaus, Brazil; Cluj, Romania; Beijing and Dongguan , China; Komárom, Hungary; Chennai, India; Reynosa, Mexico; and Masan, South Korea. Nokia's industrial design department is headquartered in Soho in London, UK with significant satellite offices in Helsinki, Finland and Calabasas, California in the USA.
Nokia is a public limited liability company listed on the Helsinki, Frankfurt, and New York stock exchanges. Nokia plays a very large role in the economy of Finland; it is by far the largest Finnish company, accounting for about a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange (OMX Helsinki) as of 2007, a unique situation for an industrialized country. It is an important employer in Finland and several small companies have grown into large ones as its partners andsubcontractors. Nokia increased Finland's GDP by more than 1.5% in 1999 alone. In 2004 Nokia's share of the Finnish GDP was 3.5% and accounted for almost a quarter of Finland's exports in 2003.
In recent years, Finns have consistently ranked Nokia as one of the best Finnish brands. In 2008, it was the 27th most respected brand among Finns, down from sixth place in 2007. The Nokia brand, valued at $29.5 billion, is listed as the eight most valuable global brand in the Interbrand/BusinessWeek Best Global Brands list of 2010 (first non-US company). It is the number one brand in Asia (as of 2007) and Europe (as of 2009), the 41st most admirable company worldwide in Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies list of 2010 (third in Network and Other Communications Equipment, seventh non-US company), and the world's 120th largest company as measured by revenue in Fortune Global 500 list of 2010. As of 2010, AMR Research ranks Nokia's global supply chain number nineteen in the world. In July 2010, Nokia announced that their profits had dropped 40%. In the global smartphone rivalry, Nokia dominates the worldwide mobile markets, but remains fragile in the United States.
On 11 February 2011, Nokia announced a partnership with Microsoft which will mean most future Nokia smart phones will be powered by the Windows Phone 7 operating system.
source: wikipedia
