Finnish company Nokia, formerly known as the world's top mobile maker, is reportedly preparing for a comeback with the release of new smartphone devices by late next year, after a recent announcement by the company's chief executive officer, Rajeev Suri.

Suri told German magazine Manager Magazin, "We will look for suitable partners, Microsoft makes mobile phones. We would simply design them and then make the brand name available to license."

Tech Spot recently reported that the Finnish company plans to design the new smartphone devices under its name, but will not be the one to manufacture them.

Nokia had reportedly made the same move already just recently with the introduction of its Nokia N1 tablet. The Nokia N1 tablet was announced last November 2014 and was launched in China just earlier this year in January.

Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group had built the recently released Nokia N1 tablet, which runs on the Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system. It has a 7.9 inch IPS LCD display screen and comes with 2 GB worth of RAM and 32 GB internal memory space. There exists a 5 mega pixel camera on the front of the device and an 8 mega pixel camera on the back.

This is also the first device by Nokia since the company sold its original mobile business to Microsoft Corporation, according to a report.

The new smartphones by Nokia is expected to come out possibly by the fourth quarter of 2016, since the company won't be able to make any devices until then after an agreement with Microsoft, according to Tech Spot.

Microsoft reportedly acquired the Finnish company's device unit for US$7.2 billion about two years ago. Since then, Microsoft has been developing its new smartphones, under the Lumia brand, that run on the company's Windows mobile operating system.