Bloomberg reports that Nokia is coming to an end because of "fierce competition" from the likes of Ericsson and Huawei. The company is currently reviewing various, including asset sales and mergers. Nokia also states that it does not expect a major recovery in profits until next year at the earliest.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Nokia-is-coming-to-an-end-with-sales-and-mergers-under-consideration.455287.0.html
Merge with Ericsson?
Xpclient: Key phrase in the news article, "Nokia Oyj, not to be confused with the trading name of HMD Global", ie. the telecoms infrastructure company, not the mobile manufacturer.
adam.mt: Very true, but there is no reason why this couldn't have been made more clear in the article, preferably with a sentence like "The telecoms infrastructure company Nokia Oyj, not to be confused with the mobile manufacturer HMD Global..."
Maybe he is more confused by Ericsson. Sony Ericsson was a joint venture (that took over Ericsson's mobile phone production) where Sony eventually bought out Ericsson's share. Ericsson still manufactures telecommunication infrastructure equipment.
It's not as if Samsung and ZTE aren't in the market. The only company with which a merge would raise significant anti-trust concerns is Huawei, since they've already got the Party and its money behind them.
However, a merge with Ericsson would be incredibly difficult due to how the Party will almost certainly obstruct this merge in order to maintain Huawei's unfair advantage, like how it went with Qualcomm and NXP.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-26/nokia-said-to-weigh-strategic-options-as-profit-pressure-mounts