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Would you buy a Nokia cellphone?
你会买诺基亚手机吗？
That’s the question that Foxconn, the Taiwanese technology giant, and HMD Global, a Finnish company, are hoping to answer after they joined forces on Wednesday to license the once-powerful brand to build smartphones and tablets, primarily for customers in emerging countries.
这是台湾科技企业巨头富士康和芬兰公司HMD Global希望回答的问题。周三，这两家公司联手，将使用这个曾经强大的品牌生产智能手机和平板电脑，主要面向新兴国家的消费者。
The announcement signals the potential return of Nokia-branded phones after the company sold its handset division in 2013 for $7.2 billion to Microsoft, which subsequently wrote down most of that investment. Microsoft later discontinued Nokia-brand smartphones.
周三的声明预示着诺基亚品牌手机有望回归。2013年，这家公司以72亿美元把自己的手机分部卖给微软公司(Microsoft)，那笔投资的大部分价值后来被减记。微软最后停止了诺基亚牌智能手机的生产。
The attempt to revive Nokia phones and tablets (the company had previously licensed its brand to Foxconn to make a tablet in China in 2014) also comes almost two decades after Nokia, then the world’s largest smartphone maker, reached its highest valuation of almost $250 billion. It is now worth around $30 billion.
这是一次重振诺基亚手机和平板电脑的尝试（2014年，诺基亚曾把自己的品牌授权给富士康，允许它在中国生产诺基亚平板电脑）。近20年前，诺基亚是全球最大的智能手机生产商，市值达到近2500亿美元的巅峰。现在它的市值约为300亿美元。
After a number of missteps, most notably the failure from 2007 onward to adequately respond to the global popularity of Apple’s iPhone, Nokia has been forced to reinvent itself as a telecommunications equipment maker, producing mobile network and broadband infrastructure for the likes of AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
经历了若干失误之后——主要是从2007年起未能对苹果公司(Apple)的iPhone手机在全球的流行作出有效反应——诺基亚被迫转变为电讯设备制造商，为AT&T和威瑞森无线(Verizon Wireless)等公司生产移动网络和宽带基础设施。
The deal announced on Wednesday aims — admittedly amid cutthroat competition in the world’s smartphone market — to resurrect the Nokia brand for consumers that may still remember the company’s glory days before it fell behind rivals like Apple and Samsung.
周三宣布的决定旨在重振诺基亚品牌，面向那些可能依然记得该公司在落后于苹果和三星(Samsung)等竞争对手之前的辉煌岁月的顾客们。但不可否认，当今的全球智能手机市场竞争异常激烈。
To make that happen, Foxconn, which put up most of the cash, and HMD Global, a private-equity-backed Finnish group led by former Microsoft and Nokia executives, agreed to buy Microsoft’s so-called feature phone unit for $350 million. The division has 4,500 workers worldwide and a manufacturing facility in Vietnam. Feature phones are basic devices, mostly used in developing markets, that often lack services like Internet access.
为了实现这个目标，富士康和HMD Global同意以3.5亿美元买下微软公司所称的功能手机分部。该分部在全球有4500名员工，在越南有家工厂。功能手机是基础设备，主要面向缺乏互联网等服务的发展中国家市场。此次购买主要由富士康出资。HMD Global是一家获得私募股权支持的芬兰公司，由微软和诺基亚的前高管们领导。
Foxconn and HMD Global also sealed a separate agreement with Nokia to license its brand to manufacture new smartphones and tablets, adding that they planned to spend a further $500 million over the next three years to promote the devices, which would run on Google’s Android operating system.
富士康和HMD Global还与诺基亚达成另一项单独协议，获得使用诺基亚品牌生产新的智能手机和平板电脑的授权。这两家公司补充说，他们计划在未来三年花费5亿美元推广这些设备，这些设备将采用谷歌的安卓操作系统。
Under the complicated agreement, Foxconn — which also makes devices under contract for other manufacturers and has attracted criticism for how it treats its workers — would manufacture the devices, which have not yet been released, as well as the existing feature phones.
按照这项复杂的协议，这些设备将由富士康生产，目前设备尚未发布。现有的功能机也将由富士康生产。富士康也按照合同为其他厂商生产设备，并因对待员工的方式而遭到批评。
HMD Global, based in Helsinki, would design the new smartphones and tablets. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of the year. HMD Global is backed by a private equity firm run by Jean-François Baril, a former Nokia executive with close ties to Foxconn.
HMD Global公司位于赫尔辛基，它将负责设计新的智能手机和平板电脑。这项交易预计将于今年年底前完成。HMD Global获得诺基亚前高管让-弗朗索瓦·巴里勒(Jean-François Baril)经营的一家私募公司支持。巴里勒与富士康关系密切。
Nokia would be paid a per-device licensing fee, and it will have a position on HMD Global’s board, though it did not put any money into the entity.
诺基亚将按量收取每台设备的授权费，也将在HMD Global的董事会拥有一个席位，虽然它没有向该公司注入任何资金。
“Branding has become a critical differentiator in mobile phones, which is why our business model is centered on the unique asset of the Nokia brand and our extensive experience in sales and marketing,” Arto Nummela, HMD Global’s chief executive, said in a statement.
“品牌塑造已经成为手机的一个关键区别点，所以我们的商业模式以诺基亚独特的品牌资源以及我们在销售和市场推广方面的广泛经验为核心，”HMD Global的首席执行官阿托·努梅拉(Arto Nummela)在一项声明中说。
Nokia has tried to reinvent itself in the smartphone market before.
之前，诺基亚也曾努力在智能手机市场重塑自我。
Months before completing its handset sale to Microsoft, the Finnish telecom giant released a device based on the Android operating system, a belated realization that Google’s software had outmuscled Microsoft’s rival version. Not surprisingly, Microsoft discontinued the device soon after taking control of the division.
在微软完成收购诺基亚手机业务之前数月，这家芬兰电讯巨头发布了一款基于安卓操作系统的手机设备。它终于意识到谷歌的软件优于微软，只是醒悟得太晚了。不出意料，微软在控制这部分业务之后不久，就停止了这款手机的生产。
It also remains unclear whether the reimagined Nokia phones would be able to compete in a global market where low-cost rivals like Xiaomi of China can offer powerful smartphones to emerging market customers, often at a fraction of the cost of Western rivals.
现在，改头换面的诺基亚手机能否在全球市场上具有竞争力仍未可知。在如今的市场上，中国的小米手机等低成本机型能够向新兴市场消费者提供功能强大的智能手机，价格却通常比西方竞争者低得多。
