Nokia has attracted a loyal fanbase for its array of attractively styled phones that team high-end functions with user friendly interfaces, as well as simpler handsets that do the essentials brilliantly. The reliability of the company's mobile phones has seen Nokia become a trusted brand and it has justifiably held the top spot in the mobile phone industry for the last decade.

In the form of the evergreen Nokia N1100, it holds the record for the largest selling handset of all time with 200 million shipped across the world - bearing testimony to the company's global popularity. But since then Nokia has steadfastly refused to rest on its laurels. Latterly, the Finnish company has attracted plaudits for its Nseries of mobile phones. These are among the advanced mobiles available, packing terrific connectivity, a dazzling array of features, innovative games and high quality imaging technology into stylish multi-media packages.



Especially popular Nseries models have included the Nokia 70 and the huge selling Nokia N95. This was followed by the even more successful update the Nokia N96, which has rivalled Apple's iPhone for sales. Set to be capture a similarly large slice of the smartphone market is the Nokia N85, which has been excellently received for setting new standards for mobile entertainment, gaming and sharing.

Nokia's range of Xpress Music mobile phones have also caused a stir, not least the Nokia N5130, Nokia N5610 and the Nokia N5800 models. These offer a rich sonic experience, with dedicated playback keys and plenty of storage space for your music library, adding up to handsets that do away with the need for a dedicated music player. Buyers of any Nokia Xpress Music phone currently enjoy a year's free subscription to the company's Comes With Music service, which entitles them to unlimited downloads.

Nokia was founded in the Finnish town of Tampere in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill. Later, the company relocated to the town of Nokia to take advantage of its improved resources for the production of hydropower and in the process adopted the name of the town as its own.

Since then it has been through several incarnations and was for much of its life a rubber works, in which form it produced everything from wellington boots to car tyres. This changed as late as the 1960s when it merged with Schwere to form the Nokia Corporation when it began to manufacture TVs, computers and communication cables. The subsequent foundation of the electronics section of the company was the seed for the telecommunications company that we know today.

During the 1980s, Nokia was responsible for developing one of world's first transportable phones in the form of the Mobira Talkman. Since then, advancements pioneered by Nokia have included the development of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), which was to prove the dominant system for mobile phones across the globe, accounting for around two billion mobile phone subscribers by mid-2006. Later that decade in 1999, Nokia launched the first ever WAP-enabled mobile phone, the Nokia 7110, followed by the first 3G mobile phone, the Nokia 6650.

Nokia phones are sold as part of pay as you go and pay monthly contracts with all major mobile phone networks and show no sign of losing popularity.