Nokia was the world’s largest vendor of mobile phones from 1998 to 2012. However, today Nokia has suffered a declining market share when other vendors came to mobile phone market. Apple iPhone and devices running on Google’s Android operating system were the biggest factor that caused the fall of the company.

Nokia’s history started in 1865 when mining engineer Frederik Idestam established a groundwood pulp mill on the banks of the the Tammerkoski rapids in the town of Tampere, southwestern Finland. In 1868, Idestam built a second mill near the town of Nokia, 15 kilometres west of Tampere by the Nokianvirta river. In 1871, Idestam with his close friend Leo Mechelin, renamed and transformed his firm into a share company, using the name Nokia Company.

From the year 1967 up till the year 2000, the company began producing electronics and the main gadget that it was producing was DX 200. The CEO was Bjorn Nalle Westurland. Then Nokia ventured into smartphones and computer business.
The first mobile phone was large and bulky and heavy. It was dependent on VHF radio frequency and had to use large antenna. 

The Nokia developed the GSM (Global System Mobile) business. This newer technology made the phone reduce in size and becoming smaller and lighter. With the ability for SMS (Short Messaging Srevice) and lower call rates, the mobile industry entered the new era and this boom caused the rise in mobile phone usage.

The Operating System (OS) that Nokia created was Symbian OS. This OS dominated the market until Android OS came and starting to dethrone Symbian. The Nokia 808 was the last phone to run on Symbian, it was the leader in the mobile industry at the time.

By the early 21st century, mobile phone market was so colorful. Many companies produced their own phones with new designs released almost every 3 months. Name like Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and Sony launched their products along with new features. 

One new name that came around 2006 and slowly dominating the market was Blackberry. They offered a very useful chat application called Blackberry Messenger or BBM. This application was so popular and easy and to use that it made people switched to Blackberry phones quickly.

This made big companies like Nokia gained big loss in selling because they did not have an application or proper OS to match BBM powerful features like sending unlimited text, pictures and videos. The SMS application only allowed you to send individual text messages and limited pictures. No ability to create a group like BBM had.

Despite a huge loss in the mobile industry they still produced Symbian phones. They partnered with Microsoft not long after that and installed Windows Phone OS for Nokia phones on the Lumia model lineup. The operating sytems for this model were Windows Phone 7.5, Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 8.1.

In 2017, Nokia started to sell phones with Android OS. This marked their comeback to smartphone industry. But this time was not easy as they face hard competition in the market. Not just from Apple or other giant Android vendors like Samsung or Sony, but also the rise of Chinese smartphones with their cheaper price and aggressive marketing strategy