Nokia has officially three new phones at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017 namely, Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and an updated edition of Nokia 3310. At MWC 2017, Nokia also confirmed that the Withings wearables will be sold as Nokia products starting from summer this year.
In June 2016, Nokia had acquired Withings for $191 million. Withings is a French based firm that specializes in making smart health devices like smartwatches, fitness bands, connected scales, blood pressure monitors, thermometers, home cameras and more. These products as well as its software will be rebranded as Nokia devices.
Since Nokia is a well-known brand name, it makes sense for the company to kill Withings branding. The rebranding was officially confirmed by Cedric Hutchings, the Vice President of Digital Health for Nokia and the former CEO of Withings. According to Hutchings, ”Withings joined Nokia because we share a vision to inspire individuals to take control of their own health. With the full power of a brand recognized for trust, reliability and quality, we will reach more people and impact more lives to help the human family be healthier together.”
Nokia will be relaunching the Health Mate app from Withings with a new design. It will arrive as HIPAA-compliant Patient Care Platform that will serve as a common place to get information from all the health devices by giving users with a “360-degree view of health.” The app is expected to include ‘in-depth coaching programs” that will provide users with up to eight weeks of fitness plans.
Through the Patient Care Platform, doctors and health experts will be able use smart devices to monitor the health of their patients in order to provide them with timely treatment and prevent unneeded visits to the hospital.
The decision of rebranding Withings to Nokia has come at a time when there is less demand for wearables in the market. The sales of Fitbit health bands are declining and Pebble was acquired by Fitbit for $23 million as it met with financial troubles. HMD Global has relaunched the Nokia brand by releasing phones like Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3 and the updated Nokia 3310. With Nokia branding for health products, the company aims to broaden its consumer products profile.
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