Nokia may return to the smartphone market as early as next year

Once the undisputed king of mobile handsets, Nokia has since sold its handset business to Microsoft and decided to focus on other markets. However, that doesn’t mean Nokia is done with handsets for good. In fact, some recent reports have suggested that the Finnish company may re-enter the smartphone market as early as next year. While not much information is available,the company reportedly has “a lot of great stuff in development.”

Four years ago, Stephen Elop, Nokia’s then-CEO, described the company as a man at the edge of a burning platform. While its rivals had set the phone market on fire, Nokia had poured gasoline on its own platform by failing to acknowledge that newcomers Apple and Google had changed the game. In hindsight, the “burning platform” memo can be seen as the prelude to the 2013 disposal of its once dominant mobile handset business to Microsoft in what many Finns considered a fire sale. The operation that made the candy-bar phone as ubiquitous as the smooth black slate of the iPhone is today was no more. So it is surprising that Nokia is quietly plotting a return to the consumer mobile market. As early as next year, the company aims to rejoin the phone market, two sources briefed on Nokia’s plans told Re/code. In addition, the company has a number of other ambitious technology projects, including some in the virtual reality arena, these sources said.