Struggling Nokia may sell company headquarters in Finland
In yet another sign of how far it has fallen, Nokia is considering selling its corporate headquarters in Espoo, Finland, to cut costs.
The Finnish handset maker is looking to shed "non-core assets" as part of a corporate restructuring, and among those assets are real estate holdings, including its headquarters, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The Espoo headquarters is said to be valued between 200 million and 300 million euros, or $259 million to $388 million U.S.
Nokia announced in June that it would ax 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013 in an effort to cut costs and turn the company around. That helped prompt all three major credit rating agencies to downgrade Nokia to "junk" status.
In July, Nokia closed its last manufacturing plant in Finland as part of its ongoing efforts to cut overhead at the company. The factory in Salo joined facilities in Burnaby, Canada, and Ulm, Germany, on the chopping block.
Once a market-leader in smartphone sales, Nokia's share has dwindled as Apple's iOS and Google's Android continue to capture a growing share of the global market. Shipments of handsets running Nokia's defunct Symbian operating system dropped some 60 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and overall sales continue to struggle as the company moves to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform.
Nokia hopes it will be able to fight back later this year with new handsets, including the Lumia 920, based on Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8 platform. This week, Nokia released a new commercial that criticized a lack of color variety with the iPhone 5, which only comes in black and white.
The Finnish handset maker is looking to shed "non-core assets" as part of a corporate restructuring, and among those assets are real estate holdings, including its headquarters, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The Espoo headquarters is said to be valued between 200 million and 300 million euros, or $259 million to $388 million U.S.
Nokia announced in June that it would ax 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013 in an effort to cut costs and turn the company around. That helped prompt all three major credit rating agencies to downgrade Nokia to "junk" status.
In July, Nokia closed its last manufacturing plant in Finland as part of its ongoing efforts to cut overhead at the company. The factory in Salo joined facilities in Burnaby, Canada, and Ulm, Germany, on the chopping block.
Once a market-leader in smartphone sales, Nokia's share has dwindled as Apple's iOS and Google's Android continue to capture a growing share of the global market. Shipments of handsets running Nokia's defunct Symbian operating system dropped some 60 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and overall sales continue to struggle as the company moves to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform.
Nokia hopes it will be able to fight back later this year with new handsets, including the Lumia 920, based on Microsoft's latest Windows Phone 8 platform. This week, Nokia released a new commercial that criticized a lack of color variety with the iPhone 5, which only comes in black and white.
Comments
I guess there is not much hope for the mobile phone branch of the rubber-boot manufacturer.
This 45 degree imagery from Google sure is…
…great. *cough*
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
This 45 degree imagery from Google sure is…
…great. *cough*
I don't understand what you meant. . .
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
I don't understand what you meant. . .
A jab at Google's 45 degree imaging.
Originally Posted by winstein2010
Nokia will be gone in 5 years.
I give it two. RIM'll happen before that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
A jab at Google's 45 degree imaging.
I give it two. RIM'll happen before that.
Where did you see it, or are you saying there isn't any?
FWIW the Streetview image is here:
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=street+view+nokia+headquarters+espoo&fb=1&gl=us&hq=street+view+nokia+headquarters+espoo&cid=0,0,11014744828968295042&ei=-ERsUPW8FKiG2gWD5oCQAQ&sqi=2&ved=0CJYBEPwSMAQ
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Where did you see it, or are you saying there isn't any?
Right, an out of context, irrelevant to the story and even the accuracy of the image itself, jab at Google's 45 degree imaging, based on nothing more than the thought that the image in the article is about a 45 degree angle.
FIRE THE CEO, FIRE ALL BOARD MEMBERS WHO APPROVED HIS DECISIONS AND TERMINATE THE MICROSOFT PARTNERSHIP IMMEDIATELY!!!!!! OTHERWISE DIE!!!!!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Just paint it different colors like yellow and green. That'll fix it.
The ONLY color Nokia is seeing is Red, as in on the company balance sheet...
/
/
Well... they can always go back to making boots.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lav1daloca
What a disgrace!!! This mighty company fell on its knees as soon as they decided to move to Microsoft's shitty Windows platform. Microsoft's trojan horse, Mr. Stephen Elop, despite being known as the worlds worst CEO to ever live on this planet continues to run this company even further into the ground. This worst CEO ever made decisions that broke all prior records on how to destroy a company and now holds the WORLD RECORD IN MARKET SHARE DESTRUCTION.
FIRE THE CEO, FIRE ALL BOARD MEMBERS WHO APPROVED HIS DECISIONS AND TERMINATE THE MICROSOFT PARTNERSHIP IMMEDIATELY!!!!!! OTHERWISE DIE!!!!!!!
If it wasn't so sad and true, I would have laughed my head off.
J.
The partnership with Microsoft was a differentiation point (away from both Apple and the ever increasing Android driven market) and one that brought in much needed cash (it's generally not good when your short-term needs drive your long-term plans), but it is what it is at this point.
I'm no financial analyst and I may not be of the caliber of a great ceo, but I am not seeing a bright future for Nokia at this point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NasserAE
Well... they can always go back to making boots.
That's certainly what they are doing best! LOL
How viable of a strategy could that actually be? They would still have to maintain some sort of HQ somewhere. And is there really that much of a market for a 200-300 Euro building? A buyer might have to spend millions building-out what's there in order to suit its needs. And the buyer would definitely be in the driver's seat in those negotiations since Nokia is on the ropes.
Really, these are Nokia's options:
Bet the whole company on some dramatic reinvention of itself--nobody seems to have a strategy for that.
Realize/Admit they are doomed and begin to shut-down/part-out the company--may not be much of an option when BOD and shareholders are involved.
Die a slow, painful death--appears to be the option the have chosen.
Nokia. Nr1 phone company in the world. Great pipeline of MeeGo products. Nokia could produce 50 dollar phones and make profit on them. World largest smartphone seller.
Enter Elop.
He killed of sales/symbian by making it obsolete over a year before replacement products where ready. MSFT pays a fee to Nokia. Nokia gladly hands over all patents maps that MSFT uses i Windows 8. Elop closes all Nokia factories and outsource production to Taiwan. Later Elop starts to build new billion dollar factories in Vietnam.
Finally Nokia releases Lumia phones and sells in year fewer Lumia then Apple sold iPhone5 in 3 days.
Then MSFT announce that they are so incompetent that they wont support OS 7.0/8 and makes all sold Windows Phones obsolete. Again.
He hade done every single "mistake" that is possible. He is a manchurian candidate from MSFT or totally incompetent.
Using Windows phone is insane since MSFT control the hardware. That is why there is no pureview phone available on Windows Phone. An Android phone with pureview would be a killer product and sell a ton. (at least license the technology to Apple so we don't have purple pictures)
Nokia was 3-5% of Finland's BNP. Hundred thousands of people who have lost their lives savings in Nokia shares. I am amazed that Elop have not been apprehended by Finland military and charged with treason.
Nokia is Ballmer at his best. This is what Ballmer knows how to do.
When they now close the Nokia factories in Finland: its all over.
Exactly the same happened to Ericsson. MSFT Rolf Skoglund was hired. Share price fell from over 250SEK to 3 SEK. From top 3 phone company in the world to gone. 50000 jobs gone in Sweden. All thanks to Microsoft and their insane belief that you can use Clippy and design phones in Excel.
I pray every day for Android on PC. Steam support. Dell/HP/AMD/NVIDIA alliance to replace Windows. Finally the world could be better.
Apple should spend all its money and buy MSFT and just close it down.
A lot of finnish companies rent their HQ's and offices and the real estate has been sold to someone with deep pockets, e.g. the insurance and pension funds. It gives the company flexibility to move around and the competition keep the rents reasonable.
It's the same with all the finnish forestry giants and e.g. Nokia's neighbouring Kone.
Can anyone with an iPhone 5 tell me where the Nokia headquarter is?