Hi everyone,
In short (and explained at length in the original collaboration agreement:
http://www.fihmb.com/investors/Download.aspx?ID=1201), TNS are the wholly-owned subsidiary of FIH Mobile which was set up to manage the feature phone business which FIH bought from Microsoft in 2016 (with a small part going to HMD). The intention of the strategic partnership was that HMD and TNS would work exclusively together to build the Nokia-branded phones (plus accessories and tablets!) business. TNS would be responsible for things like manufacturing, supply chain management, R&D, running the factory in Vietnam (I think), distribution and execution of marketing campaigns. HMD would have the option to buy TNS during the next 10 years. Some of that has changed recently...
The report's commentary is the interesting part, here are the key points which I think are relevant for those of us following HMD's adventure in the Nokia phones business:
- FIH will become more selective about which phones it works with HMD on and will start to refuse orders which it thinks have poor margins (note that to date FIH (or TNS, their subsidiary) has made a loss on many models of smartphone for HMD, which I think is a side effect of HMD releasing so many new models of phone in a short period of time, many at similar prices) - it's not clear if this relates only to manufacture or also to other things that TNS works on
- HMD will no long work exclusively with FIH! They are now pursuing a "multi-ODM" strategy, which means they will now be working with other companies than FIH. We will have to wait and see what this means in practice but it could mean there are more smartphone models, or more variations between the newer models. I think that all models released to date were with FIH, I presume those with other companies will be later this year
- TNS will no longer be the distributor for HMD's Nokia phones - I presume that HMD took some of this over and I think this is probably the source of the redundancies which various people have been talking about, but I don't know for certain; the rest of TNS's business seems to be intact.
- The report also contains a commentary on HMD's business, which is useful because AFAIK HMD do not release a similar financial report as they are a private company.
So, is this all a good thing? No, not really, because it means that the Nokia phones business is not as successful as either HMD or FIH had thought it would be. As well as working strategically with HMD, FIH also own part of HMD so it is in their interests for them to succeed - the fact that they are starting to refuse some orders means that things must be quite serious. Any deterioration in HMD's business means that they may not be able to continue releasing software updates for the existing models of phone, or to invest in the kind of innovation we all want to see. We have to hope that the changes to the business model of HMD succeeds in improving things.
One thing is fairly certain though - Nokia themselves are making money out of this, both through patent licensing and royalty fees on every device which HMD sell. Very clever

What are your thoughts on this?
Cheers

Comments
I don't think TNS has factory in only Vietnam. My 7 Plus is made in India, in a factory near Chennai, most probably assembled. I will give you the details of the factory tomorrow.
I think how this works is HMD plans devices, TNS works on the R&D and other things (probably software too), FIH manufactures the devices and finally HMD markets them.
Now, here is a thought, this forum is maintained by HMD Global but software and customer care is presumably handled by TNS. Is this the possible reason for delay in handling our bug reports or problems?
https://nokiamob.net/2019/03/28/huge-changes-in-logistics-of-nokia-phones-reveals-fihs-2018-financial-report/
If you remember, the first Nokia devices (3, 5 and 6) were really late to the market (announce Feb, on sale in July, with a broader availability in September). And logistics could be the reason why it took Nokia X5 and X6 four months to exit China, and more than a half a year to come to Europe. The demand was there for Nokia 6.1 and 7 plus (both received good reviews).
TNS is basically dead, and maybe better so because it seems that the HMD-TNS-FIH partnership isn't working that well. With FIH focusing on less devices, and other ODM's on other phones, we might see improvements in time to market and maybe even in volume for upcoming Nokia phones.
As you know, the 3.2 and 4.2 look like awesome devices for 150-ish euro, but still not on sale. Something is rotten there.
Will try to find more details, but that could be it. We know that a lot of layoffs happened and that might be because of all the overlapping positions after TNS was absorbed (speculation).
Yeah, the 4.2 in April, 3.2 in May. Not bad, but it feels like MWC was long ago. The 1 Plus and 9 were pushed quickly, good job for that. My general point was that the sales would be better if they sell (all of the) the pie while it is hot
I'm ok with posting here. Get notifications for both
Another thing that I hate is the fact that a phone is launched in some markets 6 or so months later than its first release in a global (Android One) market. It's better to never launch a thing, than launching that outdated model and spending enough on the distribution and support. They themselves know that it won't be able to sell well anymore given the extreme competition in the market.
At the end of the day, no OEM has successfully built a business on offering stock or near stock Android to consumers. Even Google is on their third attempt (Motorola, Nexus, Pixel) to make it work but unlike HMD, they have deep pockets and can afford to fail many more times.