What Is Nokia Doing Now? A Procurement Buyer's Take

I think Nokia is not a phone company anymore, and the sooner procurement teams understand that, the better they will evaluate it. My job is buying network services and equipment for a 350-person logistics technology business. I have managed a telecom budget just under $500,000 a year for the past six years, and I have the spreadsheets to prove it. When I see a search string full of Nokia phone 2004, Nokia C2 01, battery plant Kansas, C210, and what is doing now, I understand why the company is underestimated.

This is not nostalgia. I grew up around durable Nokia handsets. I remember when a small Nokia phone could outlast a corporate laptop. But the device business is not where Nokia is heading. As of March 2025, Nokia focuses on network infrastructure: private wireless, IP routing, optical transport, fixed broadband, automation and AI. That is a different company from the one in the 2004 photo album.

What Is Different From the Nokia Phone 2004 Era?

Nokia has changed before. It made paper, rubber and cable before it made phones. So it should not surprise anyone that the company changed again when smartphones disrupted the old market. The Nokia C2 01 still feels like a piece of that older generation. It was around 2010 or 2011, I might be misremembering the exact launch, but it was a simple phone with physical keys and a small screen. It worked because phones at that time did not need annual software contracts.

Today, network purchases are longer-term commitments. When I compare proposals, I do not ask whether the device will survive a drop from a ladder. I ask about security updates, support pricing in year four, interoperability with existing gear and the total cost after installation. Those questions have nothing in common with a Nokia phone 2004 shopping list.

Nokia C2 01 and Nokia C210: Same Brand, Different Eras

Searching for Nokia C2 01 will bring up a feature phone. Searching for Nokia C210 will bring up a budget Android smartphone. Both carry the Nokia name. It is easy to connect those dots and decide that Nokia is still mainly in the handset business. That conclusion is wrong because the name is licensed.

Consumer phones are produced under licence from Nokia by HMD Global. The network business and the phone business are separate. I am not saying the phones are irrelevant. For a consumer who wants a reliable prepaid phone, the Nokia C210 may be a useful option. For a company planning a private 5G network, the Nokia C210 says nothing about the company's real roadmap. Same sticker, different world.

What About the Battery Plant Kansas Search?

Now for the search phrase that looked unrelated: battery plant Kansas. Why would that show up in a Nokia conversation? I do not know exactly. But it stopped being funny when I remembered that networks are physical. Every network location we buy for includes power and backup batteries. A battery plant is a supply chain reality, not a nostalgic accessory.

This is the part I wish more people understood: battery analytics and power systems matter in infrastructure procurement. If someone starts from a battery plant Kansas query, they should end at the practical question: who is going to maintain that battery chain for the full equipment lifecycle? Nokia being mentioned in the same set is not as strange as it first appears.

What Is Nokia Doing Now? It Is Working on the Invisible Connections

What is Nokia doing now is less visible than making a candy-bar phone with Snake. It is providing equipment for the connections between industrial sites, clouds, undersea cables and cities. As of April 2025, Nokia's conversations with businesses are mostly about upgrading capacity, automating network operations and making infrastructure less costly to run.

I have sat through three network vendor comparisons in my own role. Twice, the lower quote was not actually lower once support and integration were included. That is why my view on Nokia is practical: evaluate the current portfolio, not an old phone. If the roadmap fits your business case, the company is worth talking to. If it does not, no amount of 2004 brand history should carry the deal.

The Rebuttal: Is Nokia Still a Phone Company?

I can already hear the objection: but Nokia phones are still on shelves. Yes, they are. Search Nokia C2 01 or Nokia C210 and you will see models. This does not prove that Nokia Corporation is a phone company. It proves that the brand has a licensed life in consumer electronics while the main company moved further into B2B infrastructure.

That is not an excuse. It is a normal pattern in procurement. A vendor may sell a low-margin product line under license while building the part of the business that earns larger, longer contracts. The job of a buyer is to find the business unit that solves the problem, not to assume one product line represents the whole.

What I Look For in a 2025 Nokia Evaluation

If I am putting together a scorecard for Nokia or any other network infrastructure vendor, I start with four things:

• Support and software maintenance windows, not just the purchase price.
• Integration effort with our existing sites and systems.
• Power and backup requirements, because batteries are part of the cost.
• Vendor stability, including where product development investments are visible.

Notice what is not on the list. Removable batteries. Snake game. A Nokia phone 2004 that happened to keep working until 2013. Those are nice memories, but they are not procurement criteria.

Final Take: Let the Search Result Guide You Forward

When someone types what is doing now, they usually mean what is Nokia doing now. The fair answer, as of 2025, is that Nokia is building and automating the communications layer that other companies rely on. It also licenses its name for phones like the Nokia C210. Both can be true.

What I will not do is treat a Nokia C2 01 as the measure of Nokia's future. The cost controller in me looks at the last five years of invoices, maintenance schedules and network performance. On that basis, the old image is real, but it is not the full picture. I think the industry has evolved, and Nokia has evolved with it. The only question left is whether your evaluation will do the same.