HMD Global, the Nokia brand licensee, has now acquired the trademark for Nokia Xpress-On label, reports GSMArena. This was used ages ago for replaceable front and back covers of older Nokia feature phones. The Xpress-on trademark is classified as follows: “accessories for communications apparatus, namely microphones, speakers, coloured covers, housings, cases, antennas, batteries, battery chargers”.
The newly re-registered trademark is valid until 2028. This basically means that HMD Global could use the newly registered trademark for smartphone accessories, like earphones, Bluetooth earpieces, portable speakers, battery packs and more.
Nokia Express-on isn’t the only label that the company has renewed. The Finish company previously acquired the trademark for the Nokia “Asha” label, which was transferred to the HMD Global on January 10.
Nokia came up with lost-cost smart feature phones under its Asha brand for markets like India. The phones, however, never really took off as the era of smartphone had already set in. The brand was later on acquired by Microsoft. The Asha phones were, however, soon discontinued as they rivalled against the low-end Lumia smartphones.
Now it looks like HMD Global will once again be manufacturing low-cost smartphones after taking on the Asha brand. It is speculated that Nokia is already is planning to release low-cost 4G phones that would compete against likes of entry-level 4G smartphones by Reliance Jio, Micromax, Intex and other manufacturers.
In related news, Nokia has finally launched a 4G variant of its revamped Nokia 3310. The phone is now available in China and runs YunOS, a forked version of Android. The smart feature phone comes packing a 2.4-inch QVGA colour display, 256MB of RAM, 512MB of onboard storage. Other features include 2MP camera with LED flash, a 1200mAh battery, and connectivity options like 4G VoLTE, Micro-USB, MicroSD, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and Bluetooth v4.0. The 4G 3310 will come in two colour options - Fresh Blue and Deep Black, but pricing details are not available so far.
