Samsung preparing a bid for Nokia?

By on Jun 8, 2011 at 9:26 AM
Business June 8, 2011

We reported last week that according to an industry insider, Microsoft was in talks to purchase at least a portion of Nokia’s business. Both companies denied the report, with Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop calling the rumors “baseless”. Samsung Electronics, however, is the latest company rumored to be making a bid for Nokia, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. When reached for comment, Samsung wouldn’t speak on the rumors. Nokia also had no comment. Regarding the Nokia rumor, BGR spoke with Eldar Murtzain, who originally reported the Microsoft and Nokia news, and he indicated that Nokia wanted more money than Microsoft was offering ($28 billion instead of $19 billion).

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  • Anonymous

    2 shitty companies merge to become 1 super-shitty company! Joy!

    • Anonymous

      The hell are you talking about? Sound stupid.

      Anyway. I doubt this will ever happen with the close relationship Balmer has with ELOP

      • Anonymous

        Since my comment was reinstated, Nokia barely exists in the United States. That’s a huge market to fail in. Samsung doesn’t update their phones or tablets on time so that leads me to believe they both suck. When Motorola can update to the latest version of Android and Samsung can’t, you know something is wrong.

      • Anonymous

        You sound really narrow minded as far as Samsung goes especially. And nokia makes great hardware… Sammy makes iffy hardware I think they would be a perfect fit. Obviously if Sammy buys Nokia there would be no “Nokia” Branding on the phones, just really high quality Samsung devices.

      • Anonymous

        What I dont understand is what is so hard about building quality phones that they would need to buy nokia to get some sort of edge. Anyone with economies of scale and some decent engineers SHOULD be able to put together solid hardware at a decent price. I can only see this grab as a way to own more patents.

      • Shanghai Dan

        And yet, Nokia is STILL the biggest smartphone maker in the world, in terms of smartphones shipped…

      • Anonymous

        Since my comment was reinstated, Nokia barely exists in the United States. That’s a huge market to fail in. Samsung doesn’t update their phones or tablets on time so that leads me to believe they both suck. When Motorola can update to the latest version of Android and Samsung can’t, you know something is wrong.

    • Anonymous

      The hell are you talking about? Sound stupid.

      Anyway. I doubt this will ever happen with the close relationship Balmer has with ELOP

  • Anonymous

    Hmm… no comment from Nokia this time? Intriguing. In terms of durability and battery life, Nokia’s hardware has always been fantastic. A couple of tweaks here, a couple of tweaks there… maybe trade some of their camera knowledge for a slice of whatever Samsung’s cooking?

    I had a general opposition to Samsung before, but they seem to be turning over a new leaf. They’ve turned away from the bootloader foolishness, they gave a phone to Cyanogenmod, the Galaxy S II is a destroyer of worlds (even if it doesn’t check the qHD box in the spec porn wars), and now they might be looking at getting a slice of Nokia’s pie.

    At this point, the hierarchy of awesome (IMO) is:

    1) Samsung
    2) HTC
    3) LG (narrowly, because of the existence of the Optimus 2X)
    4) Motorola

    Motorola: your move. Hint: unlock the fucking bootloader, for starters.

    • http://twitter.com/derrickisonline Derrick -Lex-

      Your hierarchy of awesome is flawed unless we’re just talking bootloaders.  It should be.

      1.  Samsung – Just because the Galaxy S II is insane, packed with tech, slim as hell and great batt life and really is the best phone to ever grace the world (at least for this week).

      2.  Motorola – Come on, OG Droid, Droid X, X2, Atrix these were killers (well the Atrix was good, not great that screen was horrible).  Though people dog Blur, it was never as intrusive as TouchWiz, or Sense.

      3.  HTC – Battery life sucks.  Sense is too intrusive, every other phone released looks like an Evo which feels like you’re talking into an external USB DVD drive.

      4.  LG – Yeah they got the Optimus 2x right (still quirky as hell), but that’s the only phone that even made me look in LG’s direction. 

      • Anonymous

        I was mostly talking about bootloaders. Also, in truest techwhore sense, I’ve got a very strong “what have you done for me lately?” mindset.

        If the Galaxy S II comes to Verizon with 4G, it’s going to have to be my next phone. It just is. As of right now, that phone is everything that’s right with life, plus a puppy and some ice cream.

        The OG Droid was serious shit when it came out. Brought Motorola back from the brink and made Verizon the alpha dog in Android. The Droid X was a heavy hitter when it came out. The X2 is not. There is no shortage of 4.3″ phones now, and the X2 doesn’t distinguish itself in a major way.

        HTC’s battery life is shite, but I’d put them over Motorola at the moment on the strength of current lineups. If and when Motorola get their asses in gear and release the damn Droid Bionic (or Targa, or whatever), I’ll move them up the list.

        It’s very true that LG hasn’t done much of anything to even be a blip on the radar. I mean, hell… the Revolution is barely worth talking about when you’ve got the Charge and the Thunderbolt in the same discussion. I almost feel bad for LG. It’s like they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to make a top of the line phone or a midrange phone, and just threw the kitchen sink at it.

        I can definitely see the merit in your hierarchy. I want to get deep into the custom ROM game, but I have a Droid 2. Motorola has been losing for me for a while, and every time I look up, another company is doing something to make the hardcore community happy. 

  • http://twitter.com/hooker1uk Paul Hooker

    *yawn* and your still quoting Eldar as an insider. he’ll do anything to rubbish nokia (hence is mumbling ranty tweets about them all the time)

  • Anonymous

    Because we need more Android phones on the market, don’t we?

    • Anonymous

      Why not. Android is the OS of choice and more choice is always better.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks for deleting my comment. Really?? BGR kinda sucks.. more than I already thought.

    • Anonymous

      Mine was deleted too. Great.

  • Anonymous

    Ok…I love my Nexus S and I loved my Epic before it, but the thing that annoys me is the damn plastic. Nokia is known for great looking harware…combine the two and you will end up with either shitty hard and software or fantastic both. 

    This could either be very good or very bad…

    • Anonymous

      How are they going to end up with shitty software? Samsung would have to be daft to want any part of MeeGo. Hell, Nokia doesn’t want any part of Meego anymore.

      If they actually do this, I think Samsung leverages Nokia’s hardware expertise and steps their game up in that direction, making nigh-indestructible phones that they then hand over to the developers of Cyanogenmod.

      • Anonymous

        TouchWiz, dude…TouchWiz…Dont be fooled, support for the homebrew community =/= abandoning the mass market strategy for Samsung.

        Only a very small percentage of Android users actually root and rom their phone, but they are also the loudest and most tech savvy opinion swayers (the ones everybody asks about what phone to get).

        I root and rom, but would never recommend to most average users as they are not as able to deal with the minor bugs and manual updates…better to leave them to the companies for support.

      • Anonymous

        Point taken. The stuff that I would get myself, and the reasons I would get it, have little to do with what I recommend to others nowadays. I’m excited about the Galaxy S II (or Verizon’s variant, anyway) because I know that Cyanogenmod will come in short order. When people ask me what I recommend, I still tell them to get something from HTC. They’ve got the most polished Android overlay.

        Thus my putting Samsung on top of the hierarchy of awesome, which is not to be confused with the hierarchy of what I’d recommend to people who have a hard time updating their apps unless the Android Market tells them to.

      • Anonymous

        Point taken. The stuff that I would get myself, and the reasons I would get it, have little to do with what I recommend to others nowadays. I’m excited about the Galaxy S II (or Verizon’s variant, anyway) because I know that Cyanogenmod will come in short order. When people ask me what I recommend, I still tell them to get something from HTC. They’ve got the most polished Android overlay.

        Thus my putting Samsung on top of the hierarchy of awesome, which is not to be confused with the hierarchy of what I’d recommend to people who have a hard time updating their apps unless the Android Market tells them to.

      • Anonymous

        TouchWiz, dude…TouchWiz…Dont be fooled, support for the homebrew community =/= abandoning the mass market strategy for Samsung.

        Only a very small percentage of Android users actually root and rom their phone, but they are also the loudest and most tech savvy opinion swayers (the ones everybody asks about what phone to get).

        I root and rom, but would never recommend to most average users as they are not as able to deal with the minor bugs and manual updates…better to leave them to the companies for support.

  • Anonymous

    Yes i know why Samsung wanted to buy Nokia, they have opportunity use Nokia & OS patent protection instead of pay MS H!+ FT.. Samsung is a smart move. 

  • Anonymous

    I hope this is true. And, I hope that, as iGOD is my witness, when Samsung buys NOKIA, it throws MicroSlush out on a Finnish katu hillitä!!!

    • Anonymous

      Shaddap u gimp

      • http://twitter.com/derrickisonline Derrick -Lex-

        +1 for saying gimp, that always makes me laugh.

  • Anonymous

    Why would they bother to buy them? They just flat out rip off the phone designs anyways.

  • http://twitter.com/mfg68 MFG

    Wait…so we would have Nokia making hardware for Windows Phone 7 AND Android?

  • http://www.facebook.com/matt.mingkee Matt Tsui

    Nokia Android will come to reality?!

    • Anonymous

      Sumimasen!

  • Imhedged

    yawn still at it huh BG lost all credability needs to be re named Boy who cried wolf….

  • Imhedged

    yawn still at it huh BG lost all credability needs to be re named Boy who cried wolf….

  • http://twitter.com/TechSelekt TechSelekt

    Its a nice rule in electronics industry, if you cant compete them, buy them. Perhaps Samsung is gonna do same.
    http://techselekt.com/

  • Anonymous

    Buy floundering company or light the money on fire?

    Nokia put out a warning in the last two weeks to update the financial world that this quarter Nokia’s revenues will be almost $1 Billion dollars lower (Billion with a B) than what they forecasted under two months ago. Basically in two months time Nokia will earn 17% less money than they thought they would. That is a sinking ship folks. 

    Sounds like a winning investment for my money.

  • 1T2dirtnap

    Ok, so WSJ is talking about this. Is someone lying! Can’t wait to find out.

    • Camguy1975

      Slightly off topic, but the WSJ constantly amazes me at the tech stories they break. Quite impressive.

  • Anonymous

    WSJ updates the article to say: Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) Wednesday declined to comment on
    market speculation that it could be preparing a bid for ailing
    Finland-based handset maker Nokia Corp. (NOK).

    “It seems like a market rumor and we don’t comment on rumors,” a spokesman for the South Korea-based company said.

    Kind of like saying “it is a bogus story and we don’t comment on bogus stories.” Sammy is doing well enough without claiming Nokia’s baggage.

    And Eldar is now saying $19b was Microsoft’s “offer”?  Like Softie would walk in there and offer 30% less than the current value of the stock?  I heard Ballmer also demanded Elop wax his car and refer to him as “Your Worship.”

  • Booboolala2000

    Google should buy them and make their nexus phones there. They could still make the windows phones too.

  • Crapware

     If the acquisition does happen, I wonder what will happen to Nokia’s open source projects, primarily Qt?

    Samsung is known for not being fond of keeping something open.

  • Melfster

    Maybe Apple should buy them then they could be largest Phone producer in the World.

  • http://twitter.com/khtse Ka Hei Tse

    Hopefully that will finally get rid of all the plastic in Samsung phones.

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