It seems Microsoft is finally ready to go without the ‘Nokia’ branding in the smartphone market. Six months after closing its acquisition of Nokia's device and services business, Microsoft said it is ready to sell smartphones under its own banner, and first Microsoft Lumia will hit the market soon.
“When we announced that the Nokia Devices & Services business would become part of Microsoft, we also shared that Lumia, our smartphone brand, would become part of the Microsoft family. Since then, we have naturally been making the change from Nokia to Microsoft in our websites, packaging and other consumer touch points,” Tuula Rytilä, senior vice president of marketing for phones at Microsoft, said.
In the coming weeks and months, you’ll start seeing even more brand experience come to life across different channels as we transition from Nokia Lumia to Microsoft Lumia.
“This is a very exciting time for us and for Lumia products, Tuula said. In the last couple of months, the company have already made some name changes to their apps to better reflect that these apps now come from Microsoft, she added.
For the Nokia Lumia phones that are already out in the market, Microsoft said it will continue to sell and support those phones, such as the recently announced Lumia 830 and Lumia 730, 735.
However, the company denies dropping the Nokia name completely as of now and said it will continue to sell Nokia-branded, entry-level category of phones, such as the Nokia 130. We have licensed the Nokia brand for such devices.
“Our global and local websites are going through a transition as we speak and in the coming days our social channels will get a new name too – they will be called Microsoft Lumia. We would like to invite our Lumia fans to continue to follow us and always be up to speed with the latest device news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.”
“This work continues across our devices, packaging and retail, to name a few. It’s all going as planned and we’re excited that our integration in to Microsoft continues to be on track.”
