The Nokia Asha range was announced at Nokia World 2011 on 26 October 2011 alongside the
Nokia Lumia. Asha was developed for
emerging markets with the goal of connecting the "next billion" to the Internet, as cited by then Nokia CEO
Stephen Elop. The name "Asha" comes from the
Hindi word meaning "hope". According to
The Verge in September 2013, Nokia had a project referred to as
Asha on Linux and also as "MView"—a reference to
Mountain View. The project used a fork of
Android on a low-end handset to maximize margins. The project resulted in the
Nokia X family of devices, unveiled at
MWC 2014. It was one of two known Android projects at the company, the other was running the OS on high-end Lumia hardware. On 3 September 2013,
Microsoft announced its purchase of Nokia's mobile device business, with the deal closing on 25 April 2014. The company previously announced an intent to use Asha as an "on-ramp" to the
Windows Phone platform, but in a company memo released in July 2014, it was announced that as part of cutbacks, Microsoft would end the Asha and
Android-based
Nokia X range entirely, in favor of solely producing Lumia Windows Phones and Nokia-branded "feature phone" products. On 11 January 2018,
HMD Global acquired the Asha
trademark. Also, in 2025, the HMD Touch 4G was released in India with the same design as the Asha, but running MOCOR OS based
S30+ instead. ==List of devices==