Microsoft looks set to drop Nokia name from smartphones

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) looks set to ditch the Nokia name from its Lumia range of smartphones just months after buying the Finnish company's handset business.

According to a post on Nokia France's Facebook page on Tuesday, the page will change its name to Microsoft Lumia "in the coming days."

Microsoft declined comment.

Under the terms of the $7.2 billion deal (4.49 billion pounds), which was struck in September 2013 and completed in April, Microsoft acquired Nokia's handset business, though not the name of the company itself.

Finland's Nokia (NOK1V.HE) continues as a networks, mapping and technology licensing company. It owns and manages the Nokia brand and only licenses it to Microsoft.

Microsoft has said in the past it plans to licence the Nokia brand for its lower-end mobile phones for 10 years and to use the name on its smartphones only for a "limited" time, without saying how long that might be.

New Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella has begun to reduce the scale of its phone-making operations. Of the 18,000 job cuts he announced in July, about 12,500 came from the unit acquired from Nokia.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Alan Crosby and Paul Simao)