The buyer for the shares was announced as New Oriental Advanced Materials, a Chinese company.
Nokia has announced that it has sold its 51 percent stake in the China-based company TD Tech that it founded with Huawei in Beijing in 2005.
The company makes a number of products for wireless carriers such as China Mobile.
TD Tech has a number of research and development centers and a highly educated workforce focused on studying wireless communication technologies. It also produces a number of wireless products for customers including China Mobile where their solutions and products have dominance in 3G and 4G commercial networks. In fact, they hold a market share higher than 60 percent.
The company was split between Nokia with a 51 percent share and Huawei with a 49 percent share. It started selling 5G products to industrial users a few years ago, even as Huawei itself was facing considerable hurdles due to sanctions between the United States and China.
Though it had been rumored that it would begin manufacturing devices under its own brand, Nokia wasn’t interested in pursuing that type of business as it could face legal challenges as a result, particularly because of the US sanctions.
It has reached the point that Nokia has sold its 51 percent TD Tech share and moved away from the company.
The price of the purchase by New Oriental Advanced Materials is reported to be somewhere in the area of US$308 million. Official statements show that Huawei has agreed with Nokia’s sale of its stake in the company but that it is not pleased with New Oriental Advanced Materials as a new owner, as that new owner does not match Nokia’s strategic capabilities.
Huawei has neither the desire nor capacity to jointly operate TD Tech and is likely already conducting an assessment of its position within that company and whether it intends to exercise its right of first refusal, which would involve withdrawing upon the sale of all its shares and potentially ending the relevant technology authorization to the company and any of its subsidiaries.
Nokia appears to be stepping further away from any form of mobile device business or the development of products with commercial availability.
