From Nokia to Blackberry, the old glories of the mobile are transformed into the MWC 2025

They lived days of glory, before being overcome by hard competition. Far from the spotlights of yesteryear, the pioneers of the Mobile telephony They are still looking to highlight, betting on networks, services to companies or niche products.

Blackberry, Motorola, HTC, Ericsson … in the World Mobile Congress (MWC), which is held since Monday in Barcelona, ​​several big names in the history of smartphones continue to maintain their stands, some discreet and other huge ones such as Nokia’s, with their walls full of bright screens.

Little familiar visitors can be surprised, since many of these brands – as protagonists – now seem out of the circuit.

In these areas, “there is an air of ‘Back to the Future’ (return to the future),” explains Thomas Husson, vice president of the Forrester consultant.

Falling technological adventures, the impact of the sanctions imposed on the Chinese manufacturer Huawei, consequences of fashion … From the popularization of the mobile phone in the late 90s, the sector experienced several changes that shook the market.

“Some large brands have appeared and then missing” while “old heavyweights like Nokia, Blackberry, Ericsson saw their market share collapsed,” observes Ben Wood, CCS research director on this phenomenon that accelerated in recent years with the consolidation of the market.

According to the specialized consultant Counterpoint, in the smartphones market there were 720 active brands in 2017, year of peak of the sector with 1.5 billion devices sold. Today are only 250, of which only thirty have international reach.

The smartphone industry – dominated by Apple (23%of sales), Samsung (16%) and Xiaomi (13%) – is “very competitive” and is subject to a permanent “dance of innovation”, recalls Thomas Husson. In such a context, brands can “quickly move from light to the shade.”

“Vintage effect”

For companies, however, falling from the top does not mean being finished. Several of them continued to thrive, focusing on “other capacities” than the production of terminals, Ben Wood emphasizes.

The Swedish giant Ericsson, manufacturer of the famous T28S telephone, has been replaced since 2011 in infrastructure and software for operators. A turn that has been profitable, since the group founded in 1876 is today the world number two in telecommunications teams, behind Huawei.

The same choice made by his Finnish rival Nokia that, after his glowing ascent in the 2000s with the mythical “3310”, famous for his consistency and the duration of his battery, was recycled in the sector of mobile networks and data storage.

Thanks to this strategy, the former world mobile one, which signed in 2016 a license agreement that allows the company HMD to produce phones under its brand, grew again and today has many “opportunities,” said its president Pekka Lundmark on Sunday.

The Canadian Blackberry, who made history with his famous physical keyboard terminals and his navigation wheel before being displaced by the reign of touch screen smartphones, reconvisited services for companies and governments.

The Ontario -based group, now very discreet in the MWC, mainly bets on the Internet of Things (IoT) and car systems to resume its glorious story and give new impulse to its stock market quotation, very diminished in the last fifteen years.

In the face of competition, others re -enforced their production to televisions or appliances, such as LG South Korean. Or in virtual reality products, such as the Taiwanés HTC, who brought Barcelona its fourth generation live Focus Vision.

Some brands, although to a lesser extent, “continue to sell phones in niche sectors,” says Thomas Husson, citing the example of Motorola Mobility, now owned by Chinese Lenovo, which offers unbreakable or rolled phones such as bracelets.

Is it enough to return these brands to the present? “There may be a small fashion effect, a vintage effect. But we talk about very low volumes, ”considers this specialist, who does not see very likely a“ revival ”of the old telephony giants in the smartphone market.