The roots of Nokia go back to the year 1865 with the establishment of a forest industry enterprise in South-Western Finland by mining engineer Fredrik Idestam. Elsewhere, the year 1898 witnessed the foundation of Finnish Rubber Works Ltd, and in 1912 Finnish Cable Works began operations. Gradually, the ownership of these two companies and Nokia began to shift into hands of just a few owners. Finally in 1967 the three companies were merged to form Nokia Corporation.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Nokia strengthened its position in the telecommunications and consumer electronics markets through the acquisitions of Mobira, Salora, Televa and Luxor of Sweden. In 1987, Nokia acquired the consumer electronics operations and part of the component business of the German Standard Elektrik Lorenz, as well as the French consumer electronics company Oceanic. In 1987, Nokia also purchased the Swiss cable machinery company Maillefer.

In the late 1980s, Nokia became the largest Scandinavian information technology company through the acquisition of Ericsson's data systems division. In 1989, Nokia conducted a significant expansion of its cable industry into Continental Europe by acquiring the Dutch cable company NKF.

Since the beginning of the 1990's, Nokia has concentrated on its core business, telecommunications, by divesting its information technology and basic industry operations.

Year 1969
Nokia introduced the world's first 30-channel PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) transmission equipment conforming to the standards of CCITT (Consultative Committee on International Telegraphy and Telephony).
Year 1981
The world's first international cellular mobile telephone network NMT opened in Scandinavia with Nokia introducing the first car phones for the network.
Year 1982
Europe's first digital telephone exchange, the DX 200.
Year 1984
The world's first portable NMT car telephone, the Nokia Talkman.
Year 1987
The world's first NMT handportable, the Nokia Cityman.
Year 1988
The world's first ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) exchange conforming to CCITT standards, manufactured by Nokia, was brought into use in Finland.
Year 1989
The world's first Actionet trunking mobile radio network was brought into operation.
The world's first fast-poll 14,400 bps (bits-per-second) modem.
Year 1990
The world's first Radio Data System (RDS) and Mobile Search (MBS) text pagers.
Year 1991
The first manufacturer to have a large-scale production-ready GSM phone.
The world's first genuine GSM call made using Radiolinja's network, supplied by Nokia.
Year 1992
The Nokia 1011, the first digital handportable phone for GSM networks.
The Nokia 100 series, the first family of handportale phones for all analog networks.
Year 1993
The first Personal Communications Network based on GSM 1800 standard delivered by Nokia.
The world's first SMSC (Short Message Service Centre) taken into commercial use in Europolitan's Nokia network.
The world's first credit card size cellular modem card developed with AT&T Paradyne.
Year 1994
The first offical GSM call in the People4s Republic of China made on a Nokia phone on Beijing TA4s network, supplied by Nokia. The first European manufacturer to start selling mobile phones in Japan.
The world's first Data Communications Server (DaCS), providing fully digital, fast access to corporate LANs.
The world's first digital cellular data products, including the Nokia PC Card and the Nokia Cellular Data Card.
Inmarsat made the world's first satellite telephone call with Nokia's pocket-size GSM handset.
The first manufacturer to launch series of handportable phones for all digital standards (GSM, TDMA, PCN, Japan Digital). The Nokia 2100 was the world's smallest and lightest family of digital products.
Year 1995
The world's first integrated wireless payphone.
Nokia PrimeSite, the world's smallest base station for GSM/DCS cellular mobile networks.
The new joint venture, Beijing Nokia Mobile Telecommunications Ltd., was established: the first factory to manufacture large scale GSM systems and equipment in China.
Year 1996
The Nokia 8100 product family, the first with an innovative, ergonomically comfortable design. Chinese character short messaging service and Chinese user interface were launched in the Nokia 8110 mobile phone. Nokia was the first manufacturer to offer both simplified and traditional character sets in the same phone.
The first digital multimedia terminal in the world, the Nokia Mediamaster.
The Nokia 2160, the first available dual mode AMPS/TDMA phone.
The Nokia 9000 Communicator, the world's first all-in-one mobile communications tool introduced at the CeBIT exhibition.
Year 1997
The world's first four TETRA networks were delivered by Nokia.
A new handset for the NMT 450 standard, the Nokia 540, which is the world's first NMT phone with Navi Key.
The world's first digital satellite receiver with Common Interface, the DVB 9600 S.
The next generation GSM product family, the Nokia 6100 series. New standards for operating times and a set of innovative industry-first features, including audio quality and an entirely new Profile function which enables users to adjust the phone settings according to various situations.
Next generation half-rate handportable for the digital PDC standard in Japan. With this introduction, Nokia is the first company to demonstrate an entirely new, innovative feature for PDC handsets, which enables calling by voice activation.
The world's first GSM dual band base station, the Nokia GSM 900/1800 Dual Band BTS. This provides the possibility to integrate GSM 1800 transceivers (TRXs) into an existing GSM 900 Base station (BTS).
Year 1998
Nokia delivered world's first ETSI standard ADSL and IP network to Telecom New Zealand, thereby marking the start of commercial delivery of broadband data services using the ADSL network.
The world's smallest NMT 450 phone, the Nokia 650, sets a new benchmark for NMT 450 technology. As a special additional feature and first in the market, the Nokia 650 has a built-in FM radio.
The Nokia 5100 series, the first mobile phones with user-changeable covers.
The world's first live High-Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) network.
The Nokia LPS-1 loopset, an easy to use device for smooth interaction between a hearing aid and a digital mobile phone. It the first product of its kind in the world.
A revolutionary new solution, the Nokia GSM Intranet Office, giving employees total mobility in the workplace via the company intranet. The world's first GSM Intranet Office combining GSM with office IP telephony.
Year 2000
Nokia introduced the world's first IPv6-enabled end-to-end GPRS network. Operators can use Nokia GPRS networks to provide their customers with new types of services that bring benefits offered by IPv6, such as global reachability and end-to-end security.
Nokia introduced the world's first TETRA WAP browser which brings powerful WAP applications to TETRA professional mobile radio networks. WAP over TETRA provides a new method of data communication for professionals. It enables real-time direct access to various customer and technical databases in only a few seconds.
Nokia unveiled 3G SGSN - an industry first enhancing GPRS networks for 3G.
Nokia has combined the versatility of WAP with the power of TETRA to introduce the world's first WAP services for digital professional mobile radio users. The new WAP services have been developed in co-operation with Finnish companies Helsinki Energy and Tekla Corporation.
Nokia and Sonera have completed tests that bring roaming capabilities for IP traffic between GPRS networks for the first time in the world.
The world's first fully standards compliant commercial GPRS network opened in China.
Year 2001
Nokia and the Finnish operator Sonera conducted the world's first Wireless LAN roaming based on GSM technology. Sonera is making use of Nokia technology that allows mobile operators to offer broadband wireless Internet services in Wireless LAN access zones.
Nokia, Nordea and Visa International to pilot the world's first Electronic Mobile Payment Services based on dual chip technology.
Wireless Village Initiative Demonstrated World's First interoperable Mobile Instant Messaging and Presence Services.
Nokia made the world's first 3G WCDMA voice call on commercial 3GPP system.
Nokia completed world's first GSM 850 call in a live network.
Nokia Unveiled the Industry's First Multi-Gigabit Platform Delivering Breakthrough Check Point FireWall-1 Throughput.
Nokia demonstrated world's first easy and secure wireless LAN authentication.
Nokia demonstrated first XHTML microbrowser on standard mobile phone.
Nokia launched world's first 3GPP compliant E-OTD positioning system.
Nokia introduces the industry first multimedia messaging solution, the Nokia Artuse (TM) MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) Center, a high-capacity platform for the next wave of mobile messaging. The solution enables operators to introduce multimedia messaging services combining new rich content, such as audio and video clips, photographs and images with the traditional text messaging.
Year 2002
Nokia announced the Nokia 6200 tri-band (GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/1800/1900MHz) phone, the world's first 3GPP compliant EDGE (Enhanced Data-Rates for GSM Evolution) handset, offering users advanced voice features and robust mobile data services via high speed Internet connectivity.
Nokia introduced the world's first handset for WCDMA and GSM networks.
As operators move toward the next generation of wireless, Nokia unveiled its first handsets designed to support advanced services across both GSM/GPRS 850MHz and 1900MHz networks.
Nokia and Omnitel Vodafone made the first rich call in an end-to-end All-IP mobile network.
First ever international MMS roaming and interconnection via Sonera GRX and Nokia MMSCs.
Nokia succesfully made the first 3G WCDMA packet data calls between its commercial network infrastructure and terminals in its laboratories in Finland. The Nokia 3G WCDMA network and terminal used were based on the commercial standard level known as 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) Release 99 June 2001 version. This was the first time that packet data has been transmitted end-to-end on a commercial system based on the above mentioned commercial standard.
Year 2003
Nokia and Jay-Z teamed up to create a music and wireless industry first with the Black Phone.
Nokia unveiled the world's first GSM push-to-talk handset, the sports-inspired Nokia 5140 phone.
Nokia demonstrated world's first dual stack IPv4/IPv6 CDMA handset.
Nokia announced that the world's first cdma2000® 1xEV-DV high-speed packet data phone call was completed at Nokia's CDMA product creation center in San Diego. The call, achieving a peak data rate of 3.09 Mbps, was made between a test set based on a commercially available Nokia 2285 handset upgraded with a Nokia 1xEV-DV chipset and a Racal Instruments, Wireless Solutions Group, 1xEV-DV basestation emulator. This chipset is the world's first to support complete 1xEV-DV Release C functionality.
Nokia Launched First SSL-based Remote Access Solution to Enable Enterprises to Customize and Secure Remote Connectivity.
Year 2004
Using Nokia's CDMA Dual-Stack handset, Nokia demonstrated the industry's first Mobile IPv6 call at the 3G World Congress Convention and Exhibition in November. The demonstration highlighted real-time streaming video with seamless handoff between two CDMA access networks using Mobile IPv6.
Nokia announced the Nokia NFC (Near Field Communication) shell, the latest step in the development of innovative products for mobile communications, in November. With the Nokia NFC shell on their phone, consumers will be able to easily access a variety of services and conveniently exchange information with a simple touch gesture utilizing NFC technology.
In October, Nokia and TeliaSonera Finland successfully conducted the world's first EDGE-WCDMA 3G packet data handover in a commercial network.
Achieving a first for the Asia-Pacific region, Nokia, MediaCorp Technologies, M1 and the Media Development Authority of Singapore jointly showcased a live end-to-end mobile phone TV broadcast over a DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast - Handheld) network at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore.
Year 2005
Nokia announced world's first commercial solution for managing DVB-H broadcast services.
The Nokia 6630 imaging smartphone has as the first device in the world achieved global GCF 3G WDCMA Certification. The certification was achieved based on the requirements defined by Global Certification Forum (GCF), an independent industry body which provides network compliancy requirements and testing for GSM/WCDMA mobile devices.
SBS Finland's Kiss FM became the first radio station in the world to begin Visual Radio broadcasts. This unique new concept developed by Nokia offers the listeners the possibility to give feedback and to participate in programs easier than ever before.
Nokia introduced a new product for secure mobile contactless payments and ticketing. The world's first Near Field Communications (NFC) product for payment and ticketing will be an enhanced version of the already announced Nokia NFC shell for Nokia 3220 phone.
In 2004 , the troubles of the networks equipment division caused the corporation to resort to similar streamlining practices on that side, with layoffs and organizational restructuring. This, however, diminished Nokia's public image in Finland, and produced a number of court cases along with an episode of a documentary television show critical towards Nokia.

Despite these occasional crises, Nokia has been phenomenally successful in its chosen field. This growth has come mostly during the era of Jorma Ollila and his team of about half a dozen close colleagues. In June 2006, this era came to an end with Ollila leaving the CEO position to become the chairman of Shell . The new CEO of Nokia is Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo .

On February 2006 Nokia and Sanyo announced a MOU to create a joint venture addressing the CDMA handset business. A few months later, in June, both companies announced ending their negotiations without agreement. Nokia also stated their decision to pull out of CDMA R&D, with the intention to continue CDMA business in selected markets.

On 19 June 2006 Nokia and Siemens AG announced the companies are to merge their mobile and fixed-line phone network equipment businesses to create one of the world's largest network firms. Both companies will have a 50% stake in the infrastructure company, to be headquartered in the Helsinki area, and to be called Nokia Siemens Networks . The companies predict annual sales of 16 billion euros and cost savings of 1.5 billion euros a year by 2010 . About 20,000 Nokia employees will be transferred to this new company.