This video was sponsored by Skillshare. Ever since Nokia sold its phone business to Microsoft about 5 years ago, European companies have essentially disappeared from the smartphone industry. But in the 40th episode of the Story Behindseries, I'd like to argue that European companies are finally starting to make a come-back. Even if it is a pretty modest one for now. Europe used to be a front-runner in mobilephones. Nokia at its peak sold over 450 million devices,which is more than even Samsung sold at its peak, and many European tech giants like FrenchAlcatel, German Siemens and Swedish Ericsson, were serious mobile phone makers too. That was until Alcatel sold its handset businessto Chinese TCL in 2005, Siemens sold its mobile business to Taiwanese BenQ the same year,Ericsson sold its stake in the Sony Ericsson joint venture to Japanese Sony in 2012 andjust one year later, Nokia too sold its phone business to American Microsoft. In just a few years, these titans of the mobilephone world were gone from Europe, supplanted by more aggressive and nimble players fromthe rest of the world. And