Summary: Two of Finland’s biggest industries, the paper industry and Nokia, have suffered tremendously with the introduction of the iPhone and the iPad.
The paper industry and cell phone company Nokia used to be Finland’s biggest industries. However, Apple has supposedly singlehandedly uprooted both industries, essentially sending Finland into a downward spiral of financial hardships.
Alexander Stubb, Finland’s Prime Minister, said, “The iPhone killed Nokia, and the iPad killed the paper industry, but we’ll make a comeback.”
Apple’s innovative and revolutionary iPhone was released in 2007. Since that time, Nokia’s fate has appeared grim. Microsoft purchased Nokia for $7.2 billion last April. One of the first moves Microsoft made was to cut jobs. Last July, the company announced that 12,500 Nokia employees would be laid off. Although a small portion of the Nokia company exists in Finland, it does not manufacture cell phones.
Last August, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Nokia and the paper industry were on the decline due to the introduction of new technology and the end of print. Prime Minister Stubb accused Steve Jobs of taking Finland’s jobs last June.
However, Apple products are not solely to blame for the decline in Finland’s economy. The end of print is also due to devices such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle—it is simply more convenient for consumers to carry one device instead of several books at a time. Further, if one compares Google’s Android phone sales with Apple’s iPhone sales, Google actually sells more phones. Perhaps the true villain is technology of all sorts, and the world’s heavy dependence on the Internet.
Photo credit: newkamikaze.com