Microsoft is moving forward with plans to re-brand Nokia phones

Last month it came out that Microsoft may be ditching the Nokia brand in favour of the Lumia brand, and now according to The Verge that’s going to start happening in territories across the world — starting in France.

As you may remember Microsoft didn’t buy the entirety of Nokia, only the company’s Devices and Services division along with the rights to use the Nokia name. According to Re/code Microsoft purchased the rights to the Nokia name for ten years, but only for feature/dumb phones. The rights to use Nokia on smartphones reportedly expire after 18 months, with Nokia, as it remains, able to starting using the name for itself no earlier than 2016.

It’s now been six months since Microsoft finalised its acquisition, meaning it has a year before the naming rights expire. It’s hardly a surprise that its already started the process.

How Microsoft is planning on using the Lumia brand in future remains unclear. Currently Nokia and Lumia are almost synonymous, but once the full changeover occurs it has to be seen whether the brand will simply be ‘Lumia’ or if the Microsoft prefix will be added to differentiate the phones from the Nokia brand.