Nokia Corporation is a multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation from Finland.

Established in 1865 as a pulp mill, the company was then associated with rubber and cables, but it was only since the 1990s, that Nokia shifted its focus to large-scale telecommunications infrastructure, technology development, and licensing.

What this means, the company is considered one of the oldest tech companies out there.

It was also one of the most powerful as well.

But due to its failure in predicting the market's demand, Nokia, having peaked at 85th place in Fortune Global 500 in 2009, plummeted.

And this time, it's making a huge job cut.

Nokia said that it needs to do whatever it takes following its 2023 third quarter earnings that plunged 20% year-on-year to €4.98 billion. Profit over the period plunged by 69% year-on-year to €133 million.

The Finnish telecommunications giant said that it will reduce its cost base and increase operation efficiency to “address the challenging market environment.”

Its target is to lower its cost base on a gross basis from 2023 by between €800 million ($842.5 billion) and €1.2 billion by the end of 2026.

To do that, it needs to reduce the number of employees from 86,000 to between 72,000 and 77,000.

This translates to around 14,000 jobs being cut.

Nokia said it would "act quickly" to make changes.

"The most difficult business decisions to make are the ones that impact our people," Ceo Pekka Lundmark said in the statement. "We have immensely talented employees at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by this process."

The substantial layoffs following Nokia’s rival Ericsson, which announced plans to lay of 8,500 employees, also as part of a cost cutting plan.

Nokia was one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment makers.

It's venture towards the peak had paid off in 1998, when it overtook Motorola to become the best-selling Mobile Phone brand. On December that year, Nokia manufactured its 100 millionth mobile phone, a feat no company before it managed to succeed.

The company then created Symbian, an operating system for PDAs and the early versions of smart mobile phones. One of the most notable, was when the company released the Nokia 9210 Communicator, which ran on Symbian in 2001. The company then created the Symbian Series 60 platform, later introducing it with their first camera phone, the Nokia 7650.

Both Nokia and Symbian eventually became the largest smartphone hardware and software maker respectively.

But Nokia's fame was mostly credited to its ability in gaining the attention of the youth market, especially using its phones, like the 3210, the "indestructable" 3350, and others that had colorful and replaceable back-covers and keypads. It was a fashion back in the days, that some people referred Nokia as the Swatch of phones.

Just like Swatch, which revolutionized the watch industry with its innovative designs and affordable yet trendy timepieces, Nokia made its mark as a pioneer in the mobile phone market, bringing durable, user-friendly, and reliable devices to the masses.

At that time, Nokia had sales revenue of $20 billion making $2.6 billion profit, employed more than 55,000 people worldwide, and had a market share of 30% in the mobile phone market.

The company was viewed with national pride by the Finnish people. At its peak in the 2000s, Nokia accounted for around 4% of the country's GDP, more than 20% of total exports, and around 70% of the Helsinki Stock Exchange market capital.

But then came Apple with iPhone, and Google with Android.

And they changed everything. Everything.

While the two competitors were pushing the boundaries with innovative touchscreen devices and advanced operating systems, Nokia initially clung to its Symbian platform, failing to recognize the seismic shift towards the app-driven smartphone era.

Moreover, Nokia's internal struggles and management issues also contributed to its decline.

Ineffective leadership and a lack of agility in responding to market changes led to a loss of competitive edge. The organization struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancements, causing it to fall behind in terms of software development and user experience.

Additionally, the rise of Android as an open-source operating system and the popularity of iOS presented formidable challenges for Nokia.

This shift in consumer preference towards these more advanced ecosystems left Nokia's offerings looking outdated and limited.

Furthermore, the decision to partner with Microsoft for its mobile platform, Windows Phone, though an attempt to revitalize its smartphone business, failed to yield the desired results.

The ecosystem couldn't match the vast app libraries of Android and iOS, resulting in a further loss of market share for Nokia.

Nokia has shifted its business to focus more on its telecommunications infrastructure business and on Internet of things technologies. Despite its downfall, the company also has projects involving virtual reality and digital health, and is also one of the largest patent licensor for most large mobile phone vendors.

In fact, as of 2018, Nokia is the world's third-largest network equipment manufacturer.

But due to its struggle, 14,000 job cuts is just one of its way to survive, not thrive.

Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark said in a statement that the decline in mobile networks revenue was owed to "some moderation in the pace of 5G deployment in India which meant the growth there was no longer enough to offset the slowdown in North America."

Despite everything, Lundmark is still confident about the foreseeable future.

"I remain confident in the fundamental drivers of our business," Lundmark said.

"Data traffic growth continues, the 5G rollout is still only around 25% complete, excluding China, and networks will continued investment. Cloud computing and AI revolutions will not happen without significant investment in networks that have vastly improved capabilities."