Nokia has confidence its VR cameras, smartphones, 5G tech will drive growth

Why it matters to you

Nokia’s new smartphones, virtual reality platform, and 5G technologies have the potential to transform industries.

Nokia’s back. At the Finnish company’s analyst and press event at Mobile World Congress on Sunday, it announced a road map that places particular emphasis on high-speed wireless, consumer smartphones, and professional-grade virtual reality equipment.

Company President Rajeev Suri said Nokia’s biggest growth potential lies in its ability to “expand, build, and create.” He touted its strength in licensing, highlighting its Ozo virtual reality platform and close working relationship with smartphone maker HMD Global. “Nokia is a fundamentally different company than it was one year ago,” Suri said.

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Suri announced that Nokia would partner with Verizon and Intel to deploy 5G-enabled “next-generation video and entertainment services.” It’s set to launch in Dallas later this year, and expand to other U.S. markets by the end of 2017.

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The U.S.-based 5G build-out dovetails with the company’s broader network efforts. Xioami has contracted Nokia to build a high-speed fiber-optic network that will interconnect the Chinese company’s data network, and it’s working with a Portuguese railway on a failback network. It’s also recruiting General Electric and Qualcomm to deploy a private LTE network “customized for the industrial Internet of Things.”