Nokia, HMD Global to partner in India for health device sale

Barcelona : Finnish company Nokia Technologies will partner with HMD Global to sell its smart health devices under the Withings brand by June in India.

"We are working with HMD as partner we are putting in place a co-marketing programme. You can expect to see these products in stores along with HMD's Nokia branded products," Nokia Technologies Vice-President for Digital Health, Cedric Hutchings, told PTI in an interview.

Nokia Technologies acquired Withings in May 2016 for USD 191 million to launch its Digital Health business.

"We made many studies to comprehend that it was the right thing (Withings acquisition by Nokia) to do. In many markets, including India, there is much traction to have these products under the Nokia brand. Global relaunch of these products will happen under Nokia in summers, late second quarter this year, including in India," Hutchings said.

HMD Global has licence to sell Nokia-branded phones which recently re-launched Nokia's 17-year-old feature phone Nokia 3310.

"We have just put small partnership in place for distribution in September in India. Now what is changing is we will go with HMD," he said.

The company has a range of smart products to keep track of health like temperature, cardiovascular activity, sleep monitoring, blood pressure, etc with help of devices that will be connected through a mobile application 'health mate' through wi-fi or mobile data.

"Every beat the heart generates a wave, that propagates along the arteries. The propagation speed of this wave is directly linked to the health of your arteries. Faster speeds indicate stiffer arteries, which increase the risk of developing hypertension or cardiovascular disease. Body cardio senses it and provides all the measurements on health mate app," Hutchings said.

He said the Withings scale will also show body fat, water percentage, muscle and bone mass.

"We have patient care platform available for doctors that captures data generated by a range of our devices. We will partner with hospitals for health monitoring platforms so that they can remotely monitor health of their patients and also galert on their health status," Hutchings added.

Withings products will sell in the range of USD 49-211 a unit.