How one bold move turned Nokia from almost going bankrupt into making $24,000,000,000 a year

Nokia's history is pretty iconic and it's been on quite the journey to get to the point where it's annual revenue is $20 billion and above per year.

Ah the good old Nokia - many of us will remember the excitement of purchasing our first ever so-called 'brick phone' and it's possibly a few of us will still have one squirrelled away in a cupboard somewhere.

Nokia was first established in 1865 through the opening of a pulp mill - converting wood chips or plant fibres into items such as toilet paper - and it's had a wild ride since, rising, falling and now climbing back up making a staggering amount of revenue each year.

The rise

In 1902, the company expanded into electricity generation and, in 1904, a rubber business making tyres and boots.

From the 1930s to the early 1990s, Nokia made respirators - masks to protect people from inhaling damaging matter - like Covid masks.

And in 1967, the three companies merged together to form the Nokia Corporation focusing on cable, rubber, electronic and forestry, before entering the world of radio and networking several years later.

Fast forward to 1998, the company becoming best known for its place in the mobile phone market - creating multiple pioneering devices such as a phone with rudimentary web functions - and Nokia is reported as having a sales revenue for the year of a staggering $20 billion with a profit of $2.6 billion.

Alas, in 2001, the tides began to turn.

Nokia has had quite the journey (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The fall

In 2001, Nokia launched its first phone with a built-in camera but profits started falling and cuts to jobs were looking likely to be made.

By 2004, Nokia revealed it was falling further to its rivals and being forced to recall 46 million phones in 2007 didn't help much either with Steve Job's launch of the Apple iPhone throwing an even bigger spanner in the works.

The 2009 recession affected Nokia sales further with more jobs cut, the following year continued on a similar thread and the year after and after that too.

Macrotrends reports Nokia saw an annual revenue of a whopping $57,156 billion in 2009, but this continued to fall year upon year, dropping slightly to $56.364 in 2010, $53,844 in 2011 and then drastically to $38,809 in 2012 and even more gut-punchingly to $16.881 in 2013.

However, in 2013, an exciting opportunity arose.

Nokia has come a long way (Getty Stock Images)

The soar

Nokia's mobile business ended up being bought by Microsoft in 2014 for $5.60 billion, incorporating it as Microsoft Mobile.

And the move has certainly worked out very well for all involved seeing the company's annual revenue start creeping up more and more over the years.

Since 2016, it's been reported that Nokia has earned an annual revenue in the 20 billions every year, while it's annual revenue for 2023 was reported as $24,090.