Founded circa 1865 in southwestern Finland Frederik Idestam, Nokia has grown to be a world leader in telecommunications and mobile cellphones.

Nokia traces its humble beginnings as a forest industry enterprise. In the years that followed, Nokia began acquiring other companies such as Finnish Cable Works and Finnish Rubber Works Ltd. Finally in 1967, the three companies merged to form the Nokia Group. In the mid 80s, Nokia bought out Salora, Mobira, Televa and Luxor of Sweden and started getting involved in the consumer electronics market where they soon began manufacturing televisions and other household appliances. In 1987, Nokia expanded its consumer electronics operations and acquired part of the component business of the German Standard Elektrik Lorenz, the French consumer electronics company Oceanic, and the Swiss cable machinery company Maillefer.

Nokia's biggest acquisition to date has been Ericsson's data systems division. This allowed Nokia to become the the largest information technology company in Scandinavia. During the 1990s Nokia relinquished all its other businesses and started to focus mainly on the mobile cell phone market.