For the longest time, Nokia phones have featured Zeiss optics. This is thanks to a deal the two companies had way back when. Though it’s been awhile since we heard of a Nokia-branded phone featuring the optics company’s name. HMD Global, the company which makes phones with the Nokia brand, has since officially announced that it has ended its long-running partnership with the camera optics company.
In a statement to Nokiamob, HMD Global and Zeiss ended their partnership in 2021. The decision to not extend the partnership was a mutual one, for what it’s worth. That being said, no reason was shared as to why the two companies decided to not extend the partnership.
The last phone that HMD Global released that came with Zeiss optics was the Nokia XR20. Prior to that, we already saw Vivo announcing the X60 featuring enhancements from the optics company. Which is not necessarily strange, but at the very least it indicated that the Nokia and Zeiss partnership was not an exclusive deal. And indeed, that was the case, in a statement from the company to Android Authority in the tail end of 2020. Another partner that the optics company currently has, as listed on its Brand Partnerships page for mobile imaging, is Sony.
As a phone brand, Nokia has quite the history. While it did make its own phones for awhile, the company first struck a deal with Zeiss to improve the camera performance of its phones. The company’s smartphone business would later be sold to Microsoft, followed by the licensing of the brand name to HMD Global. The partnership with Zeiss was not necessarily a constant as the brand changed hands, but now it looks like the two names wont be synonymous anymore for the mobile phone market.
(Source: Nokiamob, Android Authority, Zeiss)
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