Microsoft considered Nokia smartphone business buy

Microsoft and Nokia said to have held "advanced talks" that have since fallen through

Microsoft tried to acquire Nokia's handset business in a bid to bolster its position in the expanding mobile device market, according to sources.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft held "advanced talks" with Nokia about buying up its handset business, talks that are said to have taken place as recently as this month. However, any potential deal apparently fell through because of disagreements about the price and Nokia's declining market share, the report stated.

The news would appear to confirm persistent industry rumours that Microsoft was looking to snap up Nokia, rumours that have been circulating ever since the Finnish phone maker announced to the world that it was betting the future of the company on Microsoft's Windows Phone platform back in 2011.

Back then, Nokia's share of the smartphone market was suffering due to competition from Apple and Android. The switch to Windows Phone was seen as a drastic move, as Nokia largely had control over its own platform, the now defunct Symbian OS.

However, Nokia had already entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft in 2009, and signed up former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as its chief in 2010. This rapid convergence of the two companies led many industry watchers to predict that Microsoft would sooner or later acquire the phone maker.

Such a scenario was given more credence last year with Microsoft's surprise announcement that it was getting more heavily involved in the hardware market with the decision to build and sell its own Surface tablet devices.

But it would seem that Nokia's continuing difficulties in the high end smartphone market may have torpedoed any acquisition deal for the moment, if the WSJ report can be trusted.

Although Nokia is the largest vendor of Windows Phone devices, the entire ecosystem accounted for just 4.1 percent of recorded smartphone sales in the first quarter of this year.

When asked about the acquisition talks by V3, a Microsoft spokesperson simply delivered the company's stock response that it does not comment on rumour or speculation. Nokia had not responded at the time of publication.