The Nokia Family Tree: One Company Became Three
Before the 3310, Nokia made paper, rubber boots, tyres, cables and televisions — all one company. The story of how a Finnish conglomerate split into the three separate firms that still exist today.
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The story
Nokia started in 1865 as a paper mill on the Nokianvirta river. Over the next century it absorbed a rubber works (boots and tyres) and a cable works (electronics), and in 1967 the three merged into a single sprawling conglomerate that made forestry products, cables, rubber boots, tyres, televisions, PCs, military gear — and, eventually, phones.
Then it split apart. Nokian Tyres spun off in 1988; Nokian Footwear — still making rubber boots today — in 1990. In 1992 a new CEO bet everything on telecoms and sold off the rest, and the Nokia 1011 and 3310 turned the brand into a household name, peaking at over 40% of the global phone market. The payoff: the rubber boots on a Finnish farm, the winter tyres on the car, and the indestructible 3310 in the drawer were all, once, the same company.