No, Microsoft Is Not Abandoning the Nokia Brand — They Never Really Owned It

Nokia is a storied brand, but Microsoft won't be using it on its smartphones, according to a marketing document obtained by GeekOnGadgets and picked up by the Verge and others.

But Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) doesn't own the brand, as former Nokia president and Microsoft executive vice president Stephen Elop said in April. Elop also said Microsoft would be choosing a new brand for its smartphones going forward:

The Nokia brand is available to Microsoft to use for its mobile phones products for a period of time, but Nokia as a brand will not be used for long going forward for smartphones. Work is underway to select the go forward smartphone brand.

Despite faltering relevance in recent years, Nokia has previously seen awesome success in the mobile market. Its Nokia 1100 handset sold more than 200 million units in 2003 and remains one of the most successful consumer electronics products of all time.

Windows Phone will continue to be available, but it appears they will be marketed quite differently in the future. Microsoft told us it “has nothing to share” on the matter.

Nokia's current go-to Windows Phone Lumia devices for consumers are the Lumia 735, 830, 530 and 1320. There are no official announcements surrounding devices to come in 2015. Here's what gadget blog Evleaks had to say on Lumia devices coming out next year:

As we move into 2015, details are even more scarce — even the operating system versions are not clear. In the spring we can expect a pair of devices on AT&T and elsewhere known as Makepeace and Dempsey — nothing more is known about them yet. Finally, looking over twelve months ahead, the late summer / early fall lineup should be dominated by a phablet codenamed Cityman and a flagship handset called Talkman.