Nokia looking to sell Luxury Subsidiary, Vertu?

What now? I thought this division was doing well?

Reuters is saying that Nokia are looking to sell its super luxury subsidiary, Vertu, as it focuses on its smartphone efforts.

“Finnish handset manufacturer overhauls its business in an effort to compete with other smartphone makers”

Goldman Sachs is apparently going to oversee the sale, though talks are in the early stages. The luxury, extreme premium phones is supposed to have an anual revenue estimated to around 200m to 300m euros. What about profit?

Private equity groups have shown interest according to supposedly someone knowledgable in that business, adding that they are likely to attract further attention from luxury goods brands due to potential of cross selling.

Gucci Phone? Not too odd, Armani and Prada have been there and done that. I’d sooner prefer seeing it with them than perhaps, heaven forbid, HTC, Samsung or Apple. 🙁

I suppose focusing on efforts is what we’ve always wanted to see from Nokia. Less handsets, few better high quality ones. I didn’t expect a whole subsidiary to go though as I thought they quite independent and doing well. Perhaps they know a lot more that we don’t.

Source: Reuters

Thanks Joni for the tip!

Category: Nokia