Nokia is one of the most successful companies of the late 20th and early 21st century. At its peak, the company had over 40% of the mobile phone market share, and its brand was synonymous to mobile technology. Eventually, the company dwindled and was taken over by software giant Microsoft in 2013. The company’s rise and fall illustrates the effects of the rapidly changing market conditions in the electronics industry, and the consequences when a company is unable to adequately respond. As such, Nokia is an exemplary ‘victim’ of disruptive market developments.

When looking at Nokia’s recent history from a workers’ perspective, the story also illustrates global power inequalities. In its heyday, Nokia was extremely profitable, but workers in Nokia’s supply chain faced job insecurity and job losses due to shifts of production to low-wage countries, and poor working conditions. Once the company was losing market share, these same workers were among the first to experience the negative consequences of a business model in decline, with massive job cuts around the world. Eventually, when Nokia’s mobile phone segment was sold to Microsoft, an entire industry that provided income to thousands of people in India collapsed, while the proceeds from the deal were used to pay premiums to investors and bonuses to management.
This company profile provides an alternative corporate history of Nokia from a workers’ perspective. It analyses the adverse impacts of the developments in Nokia’s business strategy between 1998 and 2015, with a particular focus on the lives of Nokia workers in Reynosa (Mexico) and Sriperumbudur (India).1 This report tracks the main decisions made by Nokia throughout three phases of its recent history: leading the mobile phone business (1998-2007), the years of decline (2007-2013) and the sale of Nokia’s mobile phone business to Microsoft (2013-2015).

This report illustrates how workers at Nokia’s manufacturing sites and its supplier companies were systematically unable to benefit from the company’s success, while facing the most difficult consequences of the company’s decline.