Recently, Nokia's stock price hit a 16-year high, with its market value exceeding US$60 billion, equivalent to over RMB 400 billion, with an increase of over 60% during the year.This giant that once dominated the mobile phone market has completed a shocking counterattack as a leader in communications and AI infrastructure after bidding farewell to the mobile phone business for more than ten years.
Today, Nokia no longer focuses on the mobile phone business and has transformed into the world's second largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, occupying a core position in the fields of 5G patents, optical communications, and computing power networks.
The company holds a large number of 5G core patents, ranks among the top in the world in terms of share of optical communication equipment, and provides network infrastructure to more than 130 countries around the world. Most mainstream cloud service providers in North America use its optical transmission solutions.
The core driving force for this round of surge in market value comes from the surge in demand for optical communications brought about by the explosion of AI computing power and its deep binding with NVIDIA.
In October 2025, NVIDIA made a strategic investment of US$1 billion, and the two parties cooperated on AI-RAN smart base stations to upgrade the communication network into edge computing power scheduling nodes, directly opening up the space for growth in the AI era.
With its optical modules, data center interconnection, and 5G-A/6G technology layout, Nokia has become a key builder of the computing power highway in the AI era.
Nokia was once the absolute overlord in the era of feature phones. At its peak, it accounted for more than 40% of the global mobile phone market share. Its market value once reached US$162.3 billion. The cumulative sales of its classic model 1100 exceeded 250 million units. The concept of people-oriented technology is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
At that time, Nokia was known for its durability, long battery life and stable signal, and was synonymous with reliable mobile phones among consumers around the world.
When Apple released the iPhone in 2007, the smartphone wave hit, and Nokia's crisis quietly came.
The management misjudged the strategy and stuck to the old Symbian system. The system code was bloated and the versions were severely fragmented. In 2009, there were 57 incompatible versions. The application ecosystem was extremely weak. In 2010, the Symbian store only had 3,000 applications, while Android had more than 100,000.
Nokia rejected Google's Android cooperation invitation and insisted on independently developing the MeeGo system. However, it repeatedly missed the transformation window due to internal friction.
In 2011, Nokia made a desperate move to join hands with Microsoft and fully embrace the Windows Phone system, abandoning Symbian and MeeGo.
However, the ecological shortcomings of the WP system are obvious, the number of applications is insufficient, mainstream adaptation lags behind, Nokia's research and development cycle is forced to lengthen, and the competitiveness of new phones is insufficient.
In 2012, Nokia's mobile phone business suffered a huge loss of 1.07 billion euros, and its market share plummeted to less than 5%.
In 2013, Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft for 5.44 billion euros, and the mobile phone empire officially came to an end.