Nokia reiterates plan to enter phone market though 'brand licensing'

Nokia has reasserted its plan to re-enter the global smartphone market, reiterating what company's chief executive Rajeev Suri had said in June.

The Finnish mobile telecommunication company, which sold its handset unit to Microsoft for $7.2bn, said its new move would be 'in a completely different way from before' - that is, through a brand-licensing partnership.

The company also said it was looking for a manufacturing partner and would bring innovative technology to the mobile segment.

"That means identifying a partner that can be responsible for all of the manufacturing, sales, marketing and customer support for a product," Robert Morlino, a spokesperson for Nokia Technologies, said in an official statement.

"If and when we find a world-class partner who can take on those responsibilities, we would work closely with them to guide the design and technology differentiation, as we did with the Nokia N1 Android tablet. That's the only way the bar would be met for a mobile device we'd be proud to have bear the Nokia brand, and that people will love to buy," the company said.

The N1 tablet is the first Nokia-branded device following the sale of the Lumia and Asha businesses to Microsoft.

Nokia's mobile devices are unlikely to appear before the fourth quarter of 2016, as the company is prohibited from making smartphones until then under the terms of the sale of the phone business to Microsoft.