- For the Finnish town, see Nokia.
Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK (http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=NOK)) is the world's largest telecommunications manufacturer. It is a Finnish telecommunications company best known for its leading range of mobile phones. Nokia also produces mobile phone infrastructure and other telecommunications equipment for applications such as traditional voice telephony, ISDN, broadband access, professional mobile radio, voice over IP, and wireless LAN. Nokia also produces a line of satellite receivers.
Nokia provides mobile communication equipment for every major market and protocol, including GSM, CDMA and WCDMA.
History
Nokia was founded in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Fredrik Idestam. The company then expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish town of Nokia, and began to use Nokia as a brand. After World War II Nokia acquired Finnish Cable Works, a producer of telephone and telegraph cables. In the 1970s Nokia became more involved in the telecommunications industry by developing the Nokia DX 200, a digital switch for telephone exchanges. In the 1980s Nokia got involved in the development of mobile phones for the NMT network, and in the 1990s the company ran in to serious financial problems and was streamlined into focusing on mobile phones, mobile phone infrastructure and other telecommunications areas, divesting itself of other items such as televisions and personal computers.
In 2004 Nokia started to resort to similar "streamlining" practices as in 1990s with layoffs and organization re-structuring. This has diminished Nokia's public image somewhat in Finland. The result is now a few court-cases and at least one TV-show critical to Nokia (http://www.yle.fi/mot/kj050117/englishscript.htm).
Pronunciation
"Nokia" is properly pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, although it is frequently mispronounced. Also, all the sounds in the name are short and unreduced. The correct pronounciation has not been particularly helped by the company itself, which has made a commercial in which the name is mispronounced "nakkia", which means "(a bit of) wiener". Likewise, Americans might pronounce the name as "noukia", because there is no short "o" sound in American English.
See also
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