To this point, 2011 has been a forgettable year for Nokia. In April, Apple passed Nokia during the first quarter to become the world’s largest vendor of mobile phones in terms of revenue. Shortly after, the Finnish giant was forced to dump the Symbian platform and 3000 employees to Accenture.
The company’s public image has taken a severe beating and there seems to be no end in sight on Nokia buyout rumors. First, it was Microsoft, and later Samsung but both proved to be false alarms. Analysts believe that Nokia needs to offload some of non-core business lines and go back to what it does best – manufacture smartphones.
To that effect, Nokia yesterday sold its Operator-Branded Messaging business, which it acquired only three years ago, to Synchronica for $25 million.