Mobile 101 is a Finnish-language drama about the rise of tech company Nokia in the late ’80s and early ’90s as it attempted to create a revolutionary mass-market mobile phone – and in the process got embroiled in a major legal battle with American rival Motorola over alleged patent infringement .
Mobile 101 tells the story from the perspective of the company’s executives, lawyers and engineers and reveals how an underdog Finnish company best known for processing rubber unexpectedly became a major player in the telecommunications industry.
Here’s everything we know so far about Mobile 101…
Mobile 101 launch date
Mobile 101 will be released on Friday 19 May 2023 as a boxed set on Walter Presents via streaming on Channel 4.
The first episode will also air on Channel 4 on Sunday 21 May at 10.55pm.
Communications Officer Matti Saarinen (Markus Järvenpää) brings disturbing news to CFO Jorma Ollila (Sampo Sarkola). (Image credit: Channel 4)Mobile 101: Who’s in?
Mobile 101 boasts a huge cast of Finnish talent as key players in Nokia history.
Kristo Salminen plays Kari Kairamo, the troubled CEO of Nokia in the late 1980s who has big ideas for the company, but whose sudden and unexpected death puts Nokia’s future in jeopardy.
Sampo Sarkola plays Jorma Ollila, Kari’s CFO, who finds himself in the hot seat after Kari’s death and has to fend off a shareholder coup.
“I did quite a bit of research for this part,” says Sampo. “There is an autobiography [of Jorma Ollila] That came out only recently and a lot of people worked for Nokia in Finland – I spent some time in a sauna with ex-Nokia employees who met Jorma in real life during that time and there is a lot of written history about him . As I approached the topic, I realized that there are so many opinions about Jorma Ollila because it makes up such a big part of the Finnish economy, and I realized that I can’t capture everything! I just had to try to follow the script and make him as human as possible with his private life and the choices he has to make.”
CEO Kari Kairamo (Kristo Salminen) fends off CFO Jorma Ollila’s (Sampo Sarkola) concerns. (Image credit: Channel 4)
The series also stars Satu Tuuli Karhu as Katarina Tammi and Emil Kihlström as Aki Makkonen, two young and idealistic lawyers working for Nokia, and Aku Sipola plays the introverted but talented engineer Risto Salminen.
Nokia 101 storyline
The series begins in 1988 with Nokia as Finland’s largest conglomerate whose main businesses are electronics, paper, cables and mobile phones and whose biggest customer is the Soviet Union.
CEO Kari Kairamo is on an acquisition spree and determined to tackle the future of technology, but CFO Jorma Ollila is concerned that the company is in dire financial straits and will need to divest some of its businesses to avoid going under.
Meanwhile, ambitious lawyer Katarina Tammi applies for a job but struggles to break into the industry. After applying for a job at Nokia and impressing the company’s head of legal, Barbro Nyqvist, Tammi gets a job as a contract lawyer in Salo with Katarina’s friend Aki Makkonen – but the pair don’t expect her to get into a big international Careers are bumped into court cases as Motorola sues Nokia for patent infringement.
Aki Makkonen (Emil Kihlstrom) and Katarina Tammi (Satu Tuuli Karhu) meet CEO Kari Kairamo (Kristo Salminen). (Image credit: Channel 4)
While Kari pushes Nokia’s engineering team to create new phones that can compete with Motorola’s best-sellers, Risto Salminen is determined to create a better, smaller phone – the eponymous ‘101’ model – and uses his wife’s house as a financial security for the project…
Is there a trailer for Mobile 101?
An English subtitled version of the trailer has not yet been released by Walter Presents, but we will update this page as soon as one is available!
