TVs and computers – the first electronics boom

Finnish Cable Works, already working closely with Nokia Ab and Finnish Rubber Works, branched out into electronics in the 1960s.

In 1962, it made its first electronic device in-house: a pulse analyzer designed for use in nuclear power plants.

The company’s involvement with telecommunications systems also began in the 60s, and it 1963 it started to develop radio telephones for the army and the emergency services.

The electronics department went on to sell mainframe computers and run a computer center to cater for the company’s IT needs.

Nokia would later make:

• TVs – by 1987 Nokia would be the third largest TV manufacturer in Europe
• computers – the MikroMikko became the best known computer brand in Finland
• radio telephones
• data transfer equipment
• radio links and analyzers
• digital telephone exchanges

Changing times

Nokia would eventually leave consumer electronics behind in the 1990s. But the telecommunications expertise it developed from the 1960s onwards would become the core of its future work.