富士康接盤 諾基亞能否東山再起

Would you buy a Nokia cellphone?

你會買諾基亞手機嗎？

That’s the question that Foxconn, the Taiwanese technology giant, and HMD Global, a Finnish company, are hoping to answer after they joined forces on Wednesday to license the once-powerful brand to build smartphones and tablets, primarily for customers in emerging countries.

這是臺灣科技企業巨頭富士康和芬蘭公司HMD Global希望回答的問題。週三，這兩家公司聯手，將使用這個曾經強大的品牌生產智能手機和平板電腦，主要面向新興國家的消費者。

The announcement signals the potential return of Nokia-branded phones after the company sold its handset division in 2013 for $7.2 billion to Microsoft, which subsequently wrote down most of that investment. Microsoft later discontinued Nokia-brand smartphones.

週三的聲明預示着諾基亞品牌手機有望迴歸。2013年，這家公司以72億美元把自己的手機分部賣給微軟公司(Microsoft)，那筆投資的大部分價值後來被減記。微軟最後停止了諾基亞牌智能手機的生產。

The attempt to revive Nokia phones and tablets (the company had previously licensed its brand to Foxconn to make a tablet in China in 2014) also comes almost two decades after Nokia, then the world’s largest smartphone maker, reached its highest valuation of almost $250 billion. It is now worth around $30 billion.

這是一次重振諾基亞手機和平板電腦的嘗試（2014年，諾基亞曾把自己的品牌授權給富士康，允許它在中國生產諾基亞平板電腦）。近20年前，諾基亞是全球最大的智能手機生產商，市值達到近2500億美元的巔峯。現在它的市值約爲300億美元。

After a number of missteps, most notably the failure from 2007 onward to adequately respond to the global popularity of Apple’s iPhone, Nokia has been forced to reinvent itself as a telecommunications equipment maker, producing mobile network and broadband infrastructure for the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless.

經歷了若干失誤之後——主要是從2007年起未能對蘋果公司(Apple)的iPhone手機在全球的流行作出有效反應——諾基亞被迫轉變爲電訊設備製造商，爲AT&T和威瑞森無線(Verizon Wireless)等公司生產移動網絡和寬帶基礎設施。

The deal announced on Wednesday aims — admittedly amid cutthroat competition in the world’s smartphone market — to resurrect the Nokia brand for consumers that may still remember the company’s glory days before it fell behind rivals like Apple and Samsung.

週三宣佈的決定旨在重振諾基亞品牌，面向那些可能依然記得該公司在落後於蘋果和三星(Samsung)等競爭對手之前的輝煌歲月的顧客們。但不可否認，當今的全球智能手機市場競爭異常激烈。

To make that happen, Foxconn, which put up most of the cash, and HMD Global, a private-equity-backed Finnish group led by former Microsoft and Nokia executives, agreed to buy Microsoft’s so-called feature phone unit for $350 million. The division has 4,500 workers worldwide and a manufacturing facility in Vietnam. Feature phones are basic devices, mostly used in developing markets, that often lack services like Internet access.

爲了實現這個目標，富士康和HMD Global同意以3.5億美元買下微軟公司所稱的功能手機分部。該分部在全球有4500名員工，在越南有家工廠。功能手機是基礎設備，主要面向缺乏互聯網等服務的發展中國家市場。此次購買主要由富士康出資。HMD Global是一家獲得私募股權支持的芬蘭公司，由微軟和諾基亞的前高管們領導。

Foxconn and HMD Global also sealed a separate agreement with Nokia to license its brand to manufacture new smartphones and tablets, adding that they planned to spend a further $500 million over the next three years to promote the devices, which would run on Google’s Android operating system.

富士康和HMD Global還與諾基亞達成另一項單獨協議，獲得使用諾基亞品牌生產新的智能手機和平板電腦的授權。這兩家公司補充說，他們計劃在未來三年花費5億美元推廣這些設備，這些設備將採用谷歌的安卓操作系統。

Under the complicated agreement, Foxconn — which also makes devices under contract for other manufacturers and has attracted criticism for how it treats its workers — would manufacture the devices, which have not yet been released, as well as the existing feature phones.

按照這項複雜的協議，這些設備將由富士康生產，目前設備尚未發佈。現有的功能機也將由富士康生產。富士康也按照合同爲其他廠商生產設備，並因對待員工的方式而遭到批評。

HMD Global, based in Helsinki, would design the new smartphones and tablets. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year. HMD Global is backed by a private equity firm run by Jean-François Baril, a former Nokia executive with close ties to Foxconn.

HMD Global公司位於赫爾辛基，它將負責設計新的智能手機和平板電腦。這項交易預計將於今年年底前完成。HMD Global獲得諾基亞前高管讓-弗朗索瓦·巴里勒(Jean-François Baril)經營的一傢俬募公司支持。巴里勒與富士康關係密切。

Nokia would be paid a per-device licensing fee, and it will have a position on HMD Global’s board, though it did not put any money into the entity.

諾基亞將按量收取每臺設備的授權費，也將在HMD Global的董事會擁有一個席位，雖然它沒有向該公司注入任何資金。

“Branding has become a critical differentiator in mobile phones, which is why our business model is centered on the unique asset of the Nokia brand and our extensive experience in sales and marketing,” Arto Nummela, HMD Global’s chief executive, said in a statement.

“品牌塑造已經成爲手機的一個關鍵區別點，所以我們的商業模式以諾基亞獨特的品牌資源以及我們在銷售和市場推廣方面的廣泛經驗爲核心，”HMD Global的首席執行官阿託·努梅拉(Arto Nummela)在一項聲明中說。

Nokia has tried to reinvent itself in the smartphone market before.

之前，諾基亞也曾努力在智能手機市場重塑自我。

Months before completing its handset sale to Microsoft, the Finnish telecom giant released a device based on the Android operating system, a belated realization that Google’s software had outmuscled Microsoft’s rival version. Not surprisingly, Microsoft discontinued the device soon after taking control of the division.

在微軟完成收購諾基亞手機業務之前數月，這家芬蘭電訊巨頭髮布了一款基於安卓操作系統的手機設備。它終於意識到谷歌的軟件優於微軟，只是醒悟得太晚了。不出意料，微軟在控制這部分業務之後不久，就停止了這款手機的生產。

It also remains unclear whether the reimagined Nokia phones would be able to compete in a global market where low-cost rivals like Xiaomi of China can offer powerful smartphones to emerging market customers, often at a fraction of the cost of Western rivals.

現在，改頭換面的諾基亞手機能否在全球市場上具有競爭力仍未可知。在如今的市場上，中國的小米手機等低成本機型能夠向新興市場消費者提供功能強大的智能手機，價格卻通常比西方競爭者低得多。