After missing the turn of smartphones, Nokia would not want to miss the rebound in global PC sales.
There are market shares to take in this universe dominated by five major manufacturers: Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple and Acer.
In free fall for years in favor of large-screen tablets and smartphones, laptop sales have found a second wind with the confinements and teleworking linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The record sales of 2020 were followed last year by a 4% drop in sales, according to the specialist firm GfK, but they are still 10% higher than the level of the world before.
"Personal and professional uses have been making a strong comeback for two years and the market is picking up again in volume but also in value," confirms William George, marketing manager for Samsung France.
The Korean manufacturer, which left the sector in 2015, has also announced its comeback.
The license that saves time
Nokia has adopted a strategy where production risks are limited.
The former world leader in telephones has therefore teamed up with Off-Global, a young company specializing in the distribution of computer equipment.
A license agreement has been concluded.
It is up to the Lyon-based company to design a mid-range computer that the Nokia teams, based in Finland and San Francisco, validate and affix the stamp of a known brand to it.
Enough to tempt the nostalgic former owners of their 3310 telephone by taking up the color codes in particular.
“We needed the weight of a brand with a strong reputation to win right away.
We were thus able to work on the performance of the devices and less on the notoriety”, highlights David Garcia, the new boss of Off-Global.
After a year of development, the launch of the Nokia PureBook Pro has been delayed by component shortages affecting the Asian factories where they are produced.
Equipped with new 12th generation processors from Intel, the two Nokia-branded models come in 15.6 and 17.3 inches and target a family audience with starting prices of between 699 and 799 euros.
"These are user-friendly computers with a minimum of technical specifications and a pleasant design that matches Nokia's DNA," said David Garcia, also a former founder of smartphone maker Wiko.
The leader also intends to reproduce the successful business model of the Marseille brand by favoring distribution both in specialized stores but also and above all in supermarkets and hypermarkets.
The appetite for the new alliance is global with the objective of selling Nokia PCs in Africa and South America from 2024.
