HMD Global has recently received the trademark for the “Asha” brand. Asha is a Devanagari word which translates to “hope”. The brand name was used by Nokia for its feature phones which ran the Series 40 OS; and later the Asha Software Platform.
Nokia used to sell an enriched portfolio of devices under the Asha brand. These included the standard candybar devices, qwerty and also full-touch. The last devices user the Asha brand were the Asha 501-503 which ran the newly introduced “Asha Software Platform”.
The “Asha” brand was transferred to Microsoft during the acquisition of Nokia’s D&S division. Microsoft later decided to discontinue the Asha lineup in order to push its Lumia lineup to lower price points.
HMD may have new Nokia Asha devices in the Oven
Now that HMD has acquired the Asha brand from Microsoft, we can expect some new feature phone launches from HMD Global. It doesn’t make much sense from a business perspective to spend on getting a trademark and then not using it. So, unless this trademark was returned free of cost by Microsoft, HMD must have something in its oven.
There are still price points which the smartphones cannot reach. HMD can fill the gap between dumb phones and entry-level smartphones by delivering fast and efficient feature phones which can be a good pick over smartphones.
Via – NokiaMob
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