From “mobile phones”
to not one phone

The oldest nokia.com homepage we found is from December 19, 1996. It is mostly white space. In the top corner sits the NOKIA wordmark with Connecting People under it, and down the left run colored oval buttons. A gray handset and a red device stand in the middle, next to a Nokia Multimedia Gallery image and a link to Career Opportunities with Nokia.

The footer is the best part. It lists [ Profile | Products | Community | World | Search | Highlights ], asks you to read our legal notice before accessing any of our pages, and then tells you exactly when someone last touched the file: This page was last modified: Monday, 16-Dec-96 16:57:27.

Six months later the page is almost the same. The copyright now reads Copyright © Nokia 1995, 1996, 1997, a new image box links to www.nokia.com/thesaint, and the footer clock has moved to Friday, 23-May-97 16:16:38.

By June 1998 the homepage is one big illustration. A blue globe holds a phone and a Communicator, with PRODUCTS and NOKIA GROUP on two bubbles, and a white panel under them makes the claim: Nokia is the world's second largest manufacturer of mobile phones. The Communicator was Nokia's 1996 pocket office, which put phone, fax, calendar, e-mail and Internet in one device.^[1]

The right column is pure June 1998. A green button says Get World Cup scores, the latest press release is a TETRA radio deal with the Finnish Ministry of the Interior, and New @ Nokia is Nokia @ CommunicAsia 98.

The page is a frameset, and its frame comes with a small script that jumps to a newer file, nokia2.html. The oldest copy of that file we found in the archive is from January 1999, so we show the June 1998 frame as it looked without the jump. The text version for browsers without frames is plainer and more corporate: net sales totaled FIM 52.6 billion ($9.8 billion) in 1997 and Nokia employs more than 38,000 people in 45 countries.

On October 7, 1999 the homepage looks like a news portal. The lead box is Voices of the Millennium: a video series on the Web, At CNN Europe. Below it the same day's news says Nokia enters the Kenzo world of fashion and announces Nokia webcast: LIVE! KENZO!, a show for Kenzo's 30 years of design, from Paris on October 7.

One box is pure 1999. Year 2000, it says, Working with you to prepare for the coming millennium. The Nokia Year 2000 Project promises a smooth transition to the new millennium for Nokia equipment and services.

The rest is the mobile internet arriving. There's Nokia WAP Server 1.0 Beta available now!, and the Featured content menu lists the Nokia 7110, the phone Nokia called the world's first WAP phone that June.^[2] The same menu ends with an invitation that needs no explanation: Play the Snake!

In June 2000 a fingertip and a phone flank The World at Your Fingertips. Further down, Snake gets its own box: Play Nokia Games! If you thought Snake was good, you've got another thing coming. If you've never played Snake, where have you been?

The same page explains Bluetooth from scratch, as a new radio technology which cuts out the cables that tie electronic devices together. The right column starts with Mobile Phones and runs down to Health and Mobile Telephony and Nokia and the Environment.

In June 2001 a laughing woman fronts Club Nokia's PersonalityMatch game, and the new Nokia 9290 Communicator handles email, images, the internet and documents, all in brilliant color! A 3G box has a typo in its first word: Succes in 3G will be about speed.

By September 2002 phones have cameras, and the homepage turns into an ad break. From Now on, it's Your Show sells the Nokia 6650 imaging phone, Your life is a movie sells it again, and Show What You Mean runs a photo contest for a Nokia 7650.

The best headline goes to a phone you hold sideways: Looks Weird. Sounds Great. It is the Nokia 5510, the weird-looking Nokia 5510 phone with music player. Next to it the summer film Minority Report is coming to Nokia.com, with a trailer, a chance to test your ethics and the warning ( Flash 6 required ).

In June 2003 the homepage gets a blue tab bar: Home, Phones, Home Products, Networks, Solutions, Shop, Support, Investors and About Nokia. Under Seven New Products sits the curvy Nokia 6600 imaging phone, and a smaller box says Rock out with the Nokia 3300 music phone!

The page's code keeps a few lines it no longer shows. A promotion called Their Cities - Their Way is commented out, along with a Flash link for the Nokia 7250 and young designers' takes on London, Paris, Milan, and Barcelona.

June 2004 is the same layout in more colors. Fresh New Products at Totally Board leads with the Nokia 3220, and Phone = fun with the Xpress-on™ Fun Shell. Under Phones and more... a link reads Check out N-Gage.

The visible footer says © Nokia 2004. Just above it in the code, the old one is still there, commented out: © Nokia 2003.

In June 2005 the portal is gone. The homepage is one photograph inside a Flash movie, and our capture catches it mid-greeting: two hands about to meet in a high five, and one word, Hei, Finnish for hi. The page's script also carries a text version of the gateway: region links and a single quote, "Today designers must develop products that improve our lives and support an increasingly mobile lifestyle."

In 2006 and 2007 the gateway says Welcome to Nokia Worldwide over a photo, with three green buttons. In 2007 they read Business Solutions, Phones and More and Corporate Information. The 2007 page has almost no text in its code at all. One of the few things it does carry is a tracking script whose comment says COPYRIGHT 1997-2005 WEBSIDESTORY,INC. Our 2008 captures show only an empty Flash loading area, so 2008 is missing here.

From 2009 to 2011 nokia.com is a doorway. A wide photo sits over a green bar, Complete list of Nokia websites, Welcome to a world of mobile music, games, maps, photos, email, conversation and more. The tabs open lists of countries, and the last tab is Online Stores. In 2010 a phone strip above the photo advertises Free Navigation next to the Ovi logo.

The Online Stores tab is a closed menu, but its code tells a story the screenshots can't. In June 2009 it lists 15 countries. In June 2010 Argentina is new and Canada's store is commented out. By June 2011 Russia is new, and France, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden have joined Canada behind comment marks, still in the code but no longer on the menu.

Our June 2012 capture is the US homepage, nokia.com/us-en/, and it is a phone ad on black. The Nokia Lumia 900, the smartphone everyone's talking about is here. The hero says starting at $49.99, and a tile below says Buy it today at att.com/lumia for just $99.99. The next box offers the Lumia 710 for FREE - Only at T-Mobile.

The tiles on the screens are Windows Phone. In February 2011 Nokia had said it would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy.^[4]

The small print has two finds. The footer's social icons carry the alt text Faceboook, with three o's. And the code holds a notice for visitors on Internet Explorer 6, the browser the page lists as unsupported: For a better Nokia.com experience, please view the website with Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.

In June 2013 the global homepage is called Way Finder. It's a country picker: Select your country, then flags by region, starting with Algeria, Angola and Benin. The menu still sells phones, All phones, Nokia Lumia and Nokia Asha. In the code, each region tab carries an unfinished label: the placeholder missing key: icon appears six times.

Three months later Microsoft and Nokia announced the sale of the phone business. On September 3, 2013 Microsoft and Nokia announced a deal for Nokia's Devices & Services business and a patent license, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash.^[5] Nokia completed the sale on April 25, 2014.^[6] Our 2014 captures don't hold a usable homepage, so that year is missing here.

In June 2015 the name fills the screen. A huge translucent NOKIA wordmark lies over a photo, and three tiles below it list what is left: Mobile network infrastructure software and services, Mapping navigation and location intelligence, Advanced technology development and licensing. In April Nokia had announced it would combine with Alcatel-Lucent, a deal that valued Alcatel-Lucent at EUR 15.6 billion on a fully diluted basis.^[7]

Phones get one tile further down, Lumia & Nokia phones, with a short note: These devices now come from Microsoft. In its photo a man holds up a white Lumia with Microsoft printed on the back. The language menu in the code has a find of its own. Polish is listed as polszczyzna, the word for the Polish language, not the usual Polski.

In June 2016 the wordmark sits over a highway, and a tile announces It's official. Withings joins the Nokia family to bring digital health products to the world. Further down, a concert photo carries the line Nokia brand to return to the mobile market. In May HMD Global had announced the deal behind it: the sole use of the Nokia brand on phones and tablets for the next decade.^[8] The language menu now says Polski.

In June 2017 the hero is a dancer and a spherical camera: OZO Reality - our vision for the future of VR is here today. The top menu reads Networks, Health, Virtual reality, Phones and About Nokia. Phones have their own item in the top menu again, and they are made by someone else.

A year later the page sells a phone again, Nokia 3.1, Your premium companion. Directly below it, a tile closes the health story two years after it opened: Nokia sells digital health business to Withings co-founder.

From 2019 the homepage settles into a corporate shape. A blue wordmark and a family photo carry the line We create the technology to connect the world, From networks to software, services to devices for communications service providers, industries, public sector and consumers. Phones are one tile: Discover a better mobile experience. In June 2020 a new tile reads Keeping the world connected during COVID-19.

In 2021 Nokia flags fly over Creating technology that helps the world act together. In 2022 a man on a cliff watches a sunset under Build a better world with #NoBoundaries, Another slide of the hero carousel, in the code, offers Networking the Moon, with a button that just says Go to the Moon. The phones link is still there in 2022, in the menu and in the footer, where its address even carries a tag saying it came from the homepage footer.

In June 2023 the wordmark has changed. Its letters are cut into open strokes, and the hero says Harness the exponential potential of networks, Transform to the power of n. Nokia unveiled the new brand that February to stress its identity as a B2B technology innovation leader.^[10] Its designers at Lippincott say the letters were abstracted so they only read as ‘Nokia’ when they act together.^[11]

The top menu reads Service providers, Enterprises and governments, Licensing, Partners, Insights and research, We are Nokia. There is no Phones tab, and no link on the page leads to the phones pages. The same goes for our 2024 and 2025 captures. Phones survive in the code, in the description a link preview shows when someone shares the page: Nokia is an innovative global leader in 5G, networks and phones.

In June 2024 the hero reads The AI revolution is underway, AI-powered networks set to transform how we live and work.

In June 2025 a burst of optical fiber fills the hero: Welcome to a new era of Nokia optical innovation – now infinera times faster, with a button Welcome Infinera. Another slide in the carousel's code reads Nokia Bell Labs celebrates 100 years of innovation.

Our last capture is from June 2026. Server racks glow under the line Modern data centers that supercharge AI, and the tabs at the bottom read AI-RAN, Modern data center networks, Autonomous Networks and Broadband access networks. The link-preview line about networks and phones is gone from this capture's code. What is left is the stock photo from the top of this story, the file that says phone and the description that says headphones.

In June 1998 the homepage said Nokia is the world's second largest manufacturer of mobile phones. In January 2024 the 3310 still had a page on nokia.com, and its code named HMD as the maker. Our June 2023 homepage capture already had no link to it.