Finland prime minister blames iPad and iPhone for country's economic problems
Following a downgrade of Finland's credit rating by Standard & Poor, Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb spoke publicly about the negative rating in an interview with CNBC. During the talk, Stubb blamed Apple for part of his country's economic woes.
Stubb noted that the country has "two champions which went down," in a reference to technology company Nokia and Finland's declining paper products industry.
A little bit paradoxically I guess one could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry, but we'll make a comeback.
Before the debut of the iPhone and competing Android smartphones, Nokia was the top mobile phone manufacturer in the world with name recognized around the world. The mobile devices division of the company struggled to compete with Apple and Samsung, eventually falling behind its rivals.
In a last ditch effort to the save the brand, Nokia adopted the Windows Phone platform and eventually merged with Microsoft in a US$7.2 billion deal that split the Finnish company. Nokia still exists in Finland as a telecommunications network equipment and services company.
