How Finland Became Nokialand
from the meet-the-new-boss dept
An interesting NY Times article about how much Finland is influenced by what happens to Nokia these days. So much of the country depends on the success of that one company. They say that Nokia has created 70% of Finland’s wealthiest people. There are people who are (rightfully so) worried about such things. They point out that a decade or so ago, they were beholden to the Soviet Union. Now, they are beholden to Nokia – and it doesn’t make them comfortable. The fact that Nokia’s CEO has been making noises about Finland’s high tax rate certainly has them worried.
Comments on “How Finland Became Nokialand”
Watch out.
A similar thing happened to a lesser extent in Canada, between them Nortel and JDS Uniphase have about 25% of the market cap of the main Canadian stock exchange. People took whatever their CEOs said about the economy, schooling, and social policies seriously. Now that both have cratered (JDS had the biggest corporate write-off in history) everyone wants to forget about them.
You can only sell so many cellphones, people in Africa living on $500 a year are not going to buy a cellphone.