“Our aim is to be one of the leading players in the global smartphone market”, says Nokia CEO Florian Seiche

HMD Global, the Finnish company that owns the right to use the Nokia brand on phones, has raised $100 million of funding intended to boost growth, it said yesterday. Having sold about 70 million Nokia phones and generated sales of 1.8 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in its first year, 2017, HMD said it plans to expand its Nokia smartphone range and to double sales channels in key markets this year. “Our aim is to be one of the leading players in the global smartphone market, and our initial success strengthens our confidence that we can continue on our growth path in 2018 and beyond,” CEO Florian Seiche said in a statement. New investors include DMJ Asia Investment Opportunity and Foxconn subsidiary FIH Mobile. The fundraising round was led by Ginko Ventures, a fund owned by Jean-Francois Baril, a long-serving former senior vice president at Nokia. The company has so far launched a handful of smartphones as well as retro remakes of Nokia’s biggest hit phones of the 1990s.