LONDON — Nokia is getting back into the device business.
The Finnish telecommunications giant, which sold its handset business to Microsoft this year for $6.8 billion, on Tuesday introduced a tablet that will compete with the likes of Apple, Samsung and Microsoft.
The device, which is called the N1 and has a 7.9-inch display, will be released in China early next year for roughly $250, or less than half the cost of an iPad.
It is the first time that Nokia, which generates the lion’s share of its annual revenue from its telecom equipment unit, has re-entered the consumer market since it jettisoned its cellphone business, which was once the global leader. Under the terms of the handset sale, Nokia cannot produce cellphones until 2016, but it can manufacture other mobile devices.
Nokia is shunning Microsoft’s operating system, which has failed to gain traction in the cellphone and tablet market, in favor of the more popular Android software, which represents roughly half of the tablet market. The foray pits the Finnish company against its longtime ally Microsoft, which also manufacturers a tablet under the Nokia brand.
Unlike Nokia’s previous efforts, it is outsourcing the manufacturing, sales and customer service to Foxconn, an electronics contractor in China, which will pay the Finnish company a licensing fee to use its brand.
“We are pleased to bring the Nokia brand back into consumers’ hands,” Sebastian Nystrom, Nokia’s head of new products, said at a technology conference in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, on Tuesday.
Nokia will face real challenges as it competes with other Android-based tablets, many of which are produced by manufacturers in emerging markets at a low cost.
The announcement by Nokia also come as sales of tablets — in both developed and emerging markets — are beginning to slow. This year, global tablet sales are expected to rise 11 percent, to 229 million units, compared with a 55 percent jump in 2013, according to the technology research company Gartner.
That fall in growth is driven by consumers holding onto their tablets for longer, and often replacing older devices with new models of cellphones, many of which have better features — at lower prices — than older tablets.
“Some tablet users are not replacing a tablet with a tablet,” said Ranjit Atwal, a research director at Gartner. “They are favoring hybrid or two-in-one devices.”