Nokia and BlackBerry today: What really became of the 2000s mobile giants

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Nokia and BlackBerry today: What really became of the 2000s mobile giants.

Anyone buying a mobile phone in the 2000s could hardly get around two names: Nokia and BlackBerry. Both brands defined an entire era – Nokia with rugged everyday devices, BlackBerry with its iconic keyboard in a business look. Today, the reality is sobering.

As GameStar's "Smartphones" special notes, both Nokia and BlackBerry have long stopped making phones themselves. The common denominator remains a clear farewell to their former core competence – with a subtle but crucial difference in the aftermath.

Because while BlackBerry has completely withdrawn from the phone business, the Nokia name remains present in the mobile market to this day – albeit under entirely new conditions. What that means for the pioneers of the 2000s, we'll take a closer look.

Nokia today: Brand lives on, production elsewhere

Nokia does sell mobile phones under its own name – but the devices themselves no longer come from the Nokia house, as GameStar emphasizes in the special. Instead, the Finnish company licenses its brand and focuses more heavily on network technology and infrastructure.

For anyone who still wants to hold a Nokia device in their hands, this means: Yes, they still exist. Just no longer as direct Nokia production in the classical sense. The cult factor of the brand remains – the value chain has become a different one.

BlackBerry today: Farewell to the phone business

With BlackBerry, the situation is even clearer: the former keyboard symbol of the business world no longer makes phones itself. GameStar highlights that BlackBerry has completely distanced itself from phones – a break that is hard for many fans of the brand to understand.

The strategy behind it: BlackBerry focuses on software and services around security and productivity, moving away from the classic device business. What remains is a name that immediately conjures up the image of a physical keyboard and the "push email" boom of the 2000s for many.

Two brands, two paths after the phone exit

The comparison shows how differently former heavyweights deal with the loss of their core business. Nokia has kept the brand name in play as a license; BlackBerry has bid farewell to the end-device market altogether – as GameStar notes in the special, "one of the two names" is still present in the phone sector.

What you can take away from it: Anyone buying a Nokia today gets a licensed device carrying the spirit of the old brand. Anyone looking for a real BlackBerry phone, on the other hand, will only find used devices – the brand lives on primarily in the memory of many users.