Finnish firm HMD Global, which makes Nokia-branded smartphones, will start building 5G models in Europe. To start, the company is announcing production of the rugged dust and water-resistant Nokia XR21 within the continent, which Enterprise customers can now order. Reuters reports that the device will specifically be made in Hungary.
HMD has previously built smartphones that are licensed with the Nokia name in Asian regions, including China and India, using Taiwanese manufacturing partner Foxconn. Earlier this year, HMD said it would respond to customer demand for European-manufactured devices and planned to move some production into the continent. The move followed about four years after the company shifted its data centers to Europe to appease regulators since some of its devices were found to send unencrypted data back to Chinese servers.
In a press release, HMD Global chairman, co-founder, and CEO Jean-Francois Baril says the company is working to make devices “more secure and longer lasting.” Baril also says they’re investing further into software security and will offer “customized software and security features directly to customers.” Enterprise customers are increasingly wary of foreign-built technologies and fear devices like smartphones could ship with malware and compromise company security.
HMD claims it’s the first company to build smartphones in Europe. To celebrate, it’s building 50 limited-edition “Made in Europe” Nokia XR21s with a special frosted platinum color and a special certificate of origin in the box. Only 30 of those models will be sold on Nokia’s website, which, as of writing, is still in stock on the UK site with “only a few left.”
