ESPOO, Finland

And we weren’t the only ones to spot this either, it seems that Finnish website, Kauppalehti, got a bit hot under the collar when they picked up that Apple had lifted Nokia’s strapline and used it in their promo video.

Actually we’re pretty flattered Scott chose to say “connecting people” in his bit of the video. Especially as Macstories seemed to think it makes a pretty good headline too.

It’s rewarding to see that after nearly two decades, our mantra of “connecting people” still resonates so strongly. And of course, now we’ll be watching to ensure that our protected trademarks are not used in an inappropriate way in future!

Image credit: Caro Wallis

Well you don’t see me putting pen to paper a great deal but sometimes there are articles floating around on the sphere that get my blood pressure rising to what my doctor is prone to call an ‘unreasonable level for a man of your years/weight/physical condition’. Reading coverage of one of our competitor’s much hyped web pad event this week, I was surprised to see that, by revenue, they were claiming in their leader’s keynote to be “the largest mobile devices company in the world.”

I thought we should to set the record straight, with a true, “apples-to-apples”, comparison. Happily just as I was about to crunch some numbers, a few other folk started to notice as well. First there was Helsingin Sanomat, referring to these claims, in a story online at 10.45pm, who highlighted the reference and quoted our CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo saying that Nokia is the world’s biggest mobile device manufacturer, when you use a generally accepted and stable definition of mobile devices (i.e. not a laptop, etc). The paper then made a numbers comparison from October to December. Nokia’s devices and services business from Oct-Dec was shown as €8,18 billion while the claimants turnover for “newly defined” mobile devices was €7,25 billion.

All the details: Nokia Lumia 800

All about our stunning new smartphone.

The specs; the price; the facts

Then the Financial Times picked up the comparison too.

The difference between the two companies is even larger if you use the more common measure: the number of devices sold. By that comparison, Nokia has been the largest mobile devices company in the world for a dozen consecutive years.

We all agree that size matters in business. It’s not everything, but it counts for a lot. It has allowed Nokia to spread mobile communications technology at ever more affordable prices to people in every corner of the world. As OPK said recently at CES, our devices “already have done more to improve lives at the base of society’s pyramid than perhaps any technology in history.” And I am proud of that, and I, like the rest of my colleagues don’t use the words ‘Connecting People’ lightly.

Image credit

It’s flattering to get mentions on other sites… even when they are a little wide of the mark. Here’s an article from the Register written by Andrew Orlowski in response to an interview we posted here on Conversations speaking to Janne Jalkanen. The story places us in Nokia Marketing – we’re not as we explained earlier here. However this does raise an interesting and important point on handing out free phones, which in social media is something we don’t condone.

When our social media team is asked for loan product we operate a “No Phone Unused” initiative to assure 1) that the paper parts of a phone’s packaging are recycled and 2) that phones no longer in review can find a new home with another blogger or be sent back to Nokia for recycling of parts or proper disposal when beyond repair.
The purpose of the Nokia Store is to let our users test the latest Nokia products, and learn about new mobile services and technologies in a comfortable environment. Our flagship stores form the top end of our retail strategy, and we use the feedback and lessons received from operating them to share with our retail and operator partners, whose outlets are the main sales channels for Nokia products.

Fact is, here on the social media team, we’re working hard to be as open as we can about all topics and discussions, hence my wanting to respond to Andrew Orlowski’s story on The Register – an opinion that’s no doubt shared by some. I can obviously only speak on the behalf of the social media team, and can’t comment for the other departments that this story relates to. We’re open to your thoughts and questions, so let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Related stories
An inside (personal) view of the Symbian deal
Nokia casts recycling net across the blogosphere