HMD Global, the Finnish startup that’s taken over the Nokia phone brand, said on Thursday that it struck an exclusive partnership with the German lens maker to design hardware and software for upcoming phones.
The deal revives a similar arrangement from a decade ago between Zeiss and Nokia devices, when the phones were still made by Nokia itself.
Zeiss will be helping design lens and hardware connections inside the phones as well as the software to develop images, the companies said. The company won’t actually be manufacturing the smartphone parts, however.
The move also comes after Huawei, HMD’s fierce rival at the low end of the smartphone market, made a deal with famed German camera maker Leica to improve the photography features of its devices. Huawei dominates sales of cheaper phones and last year grabbed the third ranking in overall sales behind Samsung and Apple. HMD is trying to crack the low-end market with a series of new Nokia-branded models this year.
