We've gone full circle. In April of 2016, Nokia announced its interest to purchase french health-focused company, Withings. The acquisition and transition took full effect in June of 2017 when Withings became Nokia Health and all of its smartwatches and consumer-oriented health products were rebranded under the Nokia name. Fast forward less than a year and Nokia no longer saw value in this Digital Health Division and put it under strategic review. Now the circle has closed and Nokia has announced that it's doing exclusive negotiations to sell this division back to Éric Carreel, co-founder and former chairman of Withings.

Both Google's Nest and Samsung were reportedly interested in snapping up this sale, but in what may be a fair turn of events, the company is going back to one of its founders. Maybe this time around he'll guide it toward greener pastures. The terms of the deal were not disclosed yet, and it will still need to go through regulatory approval, but Nokia anticipates it will close by Q2 of 2018.

There's no word on what will happen next to the products and division, but the fact that it's coming back to Withings might give owners and fans of the brand a little bit of hope that they'll be treated fairly. As for Nokia, this sale should remove one of its last consumer-facing sections, thus letting it focus on becoming a licensing and business-to-business company.

Source: Nokia