Nokia's share price rallied strongly, the most in five months of trading, following investor speculation that the company was being stalked by potential bidders, according to Bloomberg. The shares advanced 5.5 per cent to €2.35 on Friday.
One rumour circulating was that Samsung was interested, although analysts dismissed the notion given that the South Korean company is achieving strong market adoption with its Android-based smartphones and has little reason to acquire struggling Nokia.
"A lot of names have been mentioned as potential bidders," Bo Nordberg, an analyst at Cannacord Genuity told Bloomberg. "I am sure someone is looking at it, but it is not particularly compelling. Even among the analyst community the feeling is quite sceptical about the outlook for the company."
While this stock market lift in Nokia share price has been blamed on speculators, the company's market capitalisation is barely $11 billion and could make it a target. Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility, in large part for its patent portfolio, and given the many thousands of patents Nokia owns observers have thought that might make Nokia more valuable.
Separately, a Nokia executive based in North America claims they're attempting to turnaround the company's fortunes with plans to expand on its initial deals with carriers AT&T and T-Mobile USA.
"But that's just a start," Chris Weber, president of Nokia's North America unit, said in an interview with Bloomberg. "We're back in the U.S., we're back in Canada--it's exciting, but there's more work to do," he said, without elaborating on the company's future plans to expand with other operators.
For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Forbes article
- see this separate Bloomberg article
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