Nokia Phone Licensee HMD Global Notches $230M In Funding

HMD Global, the exclusive licensee of the Nokia brand for tablets and smartphones, notched a $230 million investment from some of its leading strategic partners with the “first closing” of its current funding round. The funding would continue to propel the company’s strategic vision forward in four important areas, HMD Global said in a Tuesday (Aug. 11) announcement.

“Since the very beginning, HMD Global has worked to build strong bonds with our strategic partners,” HMD Global CEO Florian Seiche said in the announcement. “This additional investment further validates our long-term business strategy and is evidence of our collective mission to make modern mobile technology accessible to everyone.”

HMD Global said the investment will speed up its vision to make 5G smartphones available to people throughout the globe, and the company said it will keep moving to “digital-first” products as part of a post-pandemic world. Also, HMD Global will grow its footprint in important regions for expansion.

HMD Global also said the investment will assist the company in bolstering its stance to a “holistic mobile service provider” instead of only hardware. The company is now active in 91 markets throughout eight regions. As it stands, the company has sold more than 240 million phones.

The company notched the funding from investors with the inclusion of Qualcomm, Google and Nokia, CNBC reported.

The news comes after Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm, presented at CES 2020 in January and introduced a couple of new offerings from the firm at that time. Amon debuted the Lenovo 5G PC that is a dual-purpose tablet and laptop dubbed the Yoga 5G. Lenovo’s Yoga 5G was reportedly promoted as the first 5G PC around the globe.

In separate news, Nokia’s industrial customers will now have access to 5G standalone (SA) private wireless network offerings per news in July. The technology will assist customers in meeting their most intensive manufacturing and industrial scenarios.