The Nokia Lumia 610
Nokia’s shareholders have rubber-stamped Microsoft’s US$7.3bn (€5.4bn) takeover of the Finnish technology company’s Devices and Services business.
At a meeting in Helsinki today, the deal was almost unanimously approved, with 99.7pc of shareholders who registered voting in favour of the deal.
The transfer of Nokia’s Devices and Services business to Microsoft will take place in 2014.
Nokia’s world was turned upside down following the arrival of the Apple iPhone and the rise of the Android dominance of the smartphone market.
Samsung eventually overtook the company as the world’s largest mobile manufacturer.
As it faced reality, CEO Stephen Elop described Symbian as a “burning platform” and Nokia embraced Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system.
And now, as it turns out, Elop has been named as a potential replacement for outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
While the No 2 overall mobile manufacturer, Nokia ranks eighth in terms of smartphones, according to Gartner – a precarious position, given that smartphones now account for 55pc of all mobile devices sold in the world.
