(established 1865) The roots of this internationally renowned Finnish telecommunications company lay in a number of earlier companies, two of which were established in what became the town of Nokia. The first, established in 1865, manufactured paper and built up an international client base in Russia, Britain, France, and China. It was followed by the Finnish Rubber Works, founded in 1898, whose products were sold under the Nokia brand name in the 1920s. The third, the Finnish Cable Works, was established in 1912 and grew rapidly in tandem with the growth of electricity. All three companies were eventually merged in 1967 as the Nokia Group which, by the early 21st century, employed 24,000 in Finland alone.
Nokia's involvement with telecommunications commenced in the 1960s when, in the competitive national context, it began to invest in research and innovation. By the 1980s the company had emerged as a significant international player, being Europe's third largest television manufacturer as well as a major Scandinavian information technology company. In the recessionary years of the 1990s the company focused on its telecommunications and mobile phone divisions, a strategic aspect of corporate policy following the appointment of Jorma Ollila as chief executive in 1992. Nokia's television and cable interests were sold in 1995 and 1996. Innovation has played a key role in Nokia's success, building on its electronics expertise and the development of semiconductor technology in the 1960s. The company was also quick to move into digital (Pulse Code Modulation: PCM) transmission systems and, following the Swedish example, mobile networks for car phones. The Nordic countries collaborated in the establishment of a common mobile network, the Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) system in 1981, the world's first multinational cellular network. It was this breakthrough that facilitated the rapid expansion of the mobile telephone. Nokia remained at the forefront of such developments and, in 1991, the company supplied the standardized Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) to nine other European countries, expanding globally over ensuing years.
A key figure in the company's design thinking was chief designer and vice-president Frank Nuovo, who joined the company in the 1990s. His design projects have included the Nokia 232, 2110, 2120, 3110, 6110, 8810, 7110, and 9110 mobile phones. The design of Nokia products proved attractive to consumers, with a premium on functions, size, and aesthetics. Many industry standard features such as large graphic displays, personalized ring tones, and coloured covers were pioneered by the company, the headquarters of which were housed in a glass-panelled building designed by Finnish architect Pekka Helin and interior designer Iris Hulm, completed in 1997. Nokia first introduced its coloured covers for cellular phones in 1992, following up such thinking with richly patterned and textured casings. The idea of mobile phone as fashion accessory was taken to greater extremes with the launch of new ranges of coloured covers for the Nokia 8210 fashion phone at the Nokia Design Gala during Paris Fashion Week in 2000, a corporate involvement initiated in 1999. The phone covers were shown in the context of wearable fashion accessories designed by Nokia Young Designers. Like many other successful companies involved in the manufacture of 'lifestyle' products, Nokia sought a variety of ways to endow its products with cultural resonance. In 1998, for example, the company had launched the Nokia 252 Art Edition mobile phone for exclusive sales in the Museum Shop of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. By the early 21st century Nokia had become the world's leading supplier of mobile phones and telephone networks and was listed on the Frankfurt, Helsinki, London, New York, Paris, and Stockholm stock exhanges with a global turnover of almost 20 billion euros.
From A Dictionary of Modern Design
