HMD Global, the Finnish mobile phone maker and heir to the Nokia brand, has revealed plans to move some of its production to Europe.
According to the company, the move responds to "increasing customer demand" for devices made locally, due in part to concerns for the safety and sustainability of both its corporate users and consumers.
The announcement comes four years after HMD Global revealed that it was moving its data centers to Europe to comply with European Union (EU) data regulations such as the GDPR. Moving manufacturing there, it seems, is the next natural step.
“We already have our data centers in Europe, more specifically in Finland, to guarantee the security of our devices,” HMD Global marketing director Lars Silberbauer told a press conference. "As we start this journey to bring manufacturing to Europe, we want to make sure that the critical part of device development is within Europe and within European legislation, which is quite important for many of our customers."
So, in many ways, the company is adopting a similar philosophy to manufacturing that the cloud computing industry has been applying to data with region-specific infrastructures: sovereignty is very much the name of the game. , bringing the “product” closer to the customer and making it easier for everyone involved to comply with local laws and regulations.
Manufacturer's brand
HMD Global rose from the ashes of Microsoft's ill-fated acquisition of Nokia devices in 2013, a move that ultimately led to a $7.000 billion writedown after Satya Nadella took over as CEO and refocused efforts. of the company Microsoft eventually divested the business entirely from Nokia, which signed a brand license agreement with the newly created entity HMD Global in 2016.
For the most part, the bulk of which came in 2020 from big backers like Google, Qualcomm and Nokia itself.
Like most mobile phone companies, HMD Global has so far relied on Asia for its production, specifically China and India. And it is clear that this is not going to change. But as part of its growing ambitions in the enterprise arena specifically, which includes a suite of add-on subscription services for businesses, the company wants to further differentiate itself in a space that includes deep-pocketed carriers like Samsung, Google and, of course, , Manzana.
In fact, Silberbauer has stressed that the company sees it as a means to attract new customers with very specific location demands in the region. “We are not going to remove production from any site,” he said. "We see it as a growth opportunity for the European market."
Silberbauer said its European manufacturing efforts will start with a 5G smartphone aimed at "security-conscious industries", and it will be offered purely as a B2B product. Manufacturing and shipping are expected to begin as early as Q2023 XNUMX, with plans to add at least one consumer-focused device to the mix in the future. “We are moving step by step towards manufacturing in Europe,” says Silberbauer.
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The big question is, where exactly does HMD Global make its devices in Europe? Finland could be a good option, since that is where the company is based. But despite repeated attempts to get specific information about their manufacturing plans on the mainland, Silberbauer cited security concerns as one reason they couldn't divulge the exact location of their factories.
“Unfortunately, because our customers are from very security-conscious industries, we can't tell anyone in which countries we manufacture these devices, just to keep them as safe as possible,” he explained.
However, Silberbauer has revealed what the manufacturing flow will look like at the start and has confirmed that HMD Global will continue to work closely with its Asian partners.
"We cannot flip a switch and have a fully operational factory in Europe," he said. "We must go step by step. So the first steps are basically for our current partner in China to collect the materials and carry out initial security, before shipping them to our manufacturing partners in the EU. And from there, the partner in Europe will finish the assembly, calibrate and test the devices, test the hardware, and specifically test the software for security.”
HMD Global is also using this new distributed manufacturing model to trumpet its sustainability credentials, and Silberbauer notes that this is one reason why it doesn't make sense to move its current manufacturing from its current location in Asia, where it already has a solid customer base.
“Manufacturing in Europe means that we will reduce the carbon footprint of these devices,” says Silberbauer. “It would not make sense to make all our phones in Europe, because all our markets and consumers are not in Europe. From a sustainability point of view, it is better to keep production in the areas where the consumers are.”
