By Adam Spatacco
Publication Date: 2026-05-10 10:31:00
Evolving from its roots in industrial and electronics equipment, Nokia (NOK +3.85%) has long been a cornerstone of global connectivity. Once a dominant force in mobile handsets that defined an era of brick phones, the company has quietly reinvented itself as a leader in network infrastructure.
Amid the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI), Nokia has forged a partnership with Nvidia (NVDA +1.73%) that could propel the company far beyond its legacy telecom roots. This strategic pivot raises an interesting question for investors: Is Nokia simply riding a wave of AI hype, or does it offer a rare opportunity to buy a meme stock with genuine substance?
Image source: Nvidia.
Taking a trip down memory lane: Nokia’s rise and fall
You probably remember Nokia as a popular mobile phone maker from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Its phones were synonymous with reliability and innovation, and powered the first wave of mass-market wireless communication. At its peak, Nokia commanded 40% of the global mobile phone market.
By the mid-2000s, however, the arrival of Apple‘s iPhone and Alphabet‘s Google Android ecosystem exposed Nokia’s struggles to keep pace with touchscreen smartphones and app-driven software. The company’s market share eroded, and in 2014, Nokia sold its mobile division to Microsoft.
While most investors assumed this would be the end of Nokia, the company actually pivoted its focus entirely to telecommunications infrastructure. Today, it builds 5G radio…
