HMD, or Human Mobile Devices for short, is launching a Barbie-branded flip phone in July.
HMD
BARCELONA — Not yet tired of the Barbie movie?
Soon, you’ll be able to get a flip phone from the blockbuster toy franchise.
The company behind Nokia-branded smartphones, HMD, short for Human Mobile Devices, says it is launching a Barbie flip phone this summer, in partnership with toy maker Mattel.
Mattel is the company behind the Barbie fashion doll collection. It has produced and sold the popular kids’ toys and accessories since 1959.
The device, which is slated for launch this summer, “promises to embody the vintage chic of the original girl empowerment brand with a dash of pink and of course, sparkle,” according to a HMD press release.
It won’t be connected to the internet, making it a throwback to the “dumb phones” of yesteryear before smartphones became popular.
So-called dumb phones have become more popular, especially with Gen Z consumers, who are trying to limit their digital activity and move away from toxic content found on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube.
HMD was spun out of Microsoft after the U.S. tech giant decided to sell the Nokia phone brand, which it first purchased in 2014, to a group of former Nokia executives.
HMD Global was established in 2016.
Riding Barbie mania
Barbie mania became a phenomenon in 2023 due to a blockbuster movie featuring the likes of Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and Will Ferrell.
Lars Silberbauer, HMD’s chief marketing officer, told CNBC the company was taking the “Lego model” of partnering with other big-name brands, while providing tech knowhow and its own phone brand.
Silberbauer previously worked at Lego as a senior global director.
“We’re not a white label business. We want the HMD brand to stand for something,” Silberbauer told CNBC. “There will be more collaborations. The next one is coming out in May.”
He suggested there would be plenty other deals and partnerships down the line.
HMD previously worked with James Bond movie “No Time To Die” to promote the film in 2020.
The new device from HMD and Mattel will look like a standard flip phone with buttons rather than a touch screen, and comes in a hot pink color, resembling the iconic pink flip phone accessory that comes with many Barbie dolls.
Information on pricing and availability has not yet been shared by the company.
The company is hoping the traction of the Barbie brand will give it a boost as a more internationally recognized brand name.
HMD did not reveal the device at its press event in Barcelona, which came ahead of the Mobile World Congress technology trade show.
It is the first device being sold by HMD under its new brand name, Human Mobile Devices — or HMD for short. This is a step away from Nokia which is the brand HMD typically has used to sell its dumb phones and smartphones.
Under a revamp, HMD plans to still sell Nokia phones. But it will partner with other brands to sell phones that represent both its brand, and the partner’s.
Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of devices and analytics for Europe at research firm IDC, said he believes HMD will try to put for celebrities and influencers to promote its phones.
“This could help the brand get a more premium positioning, Jeronimo said in an interview. “They are very strong on feature phones their sales on smartphones are not that strong.”
HMD, which also reached profitability last year, sells millions of smartphones. But it’s not a household name like Apple or Samsung.
The artificial intelligence boom has sent energy demand soaring. Some of the supercomputers sucking up all that power are helping to find new energy sources.
Fusion energy is the process of forcing two hydrogen atoms to combine and form one helium atom, which releases huge amounts of power. It uses a stellarator, a type of fusion reactor invented in the 1950’s that produces heat.
Until now, the technology was too difficult to deploy commercially.
But this old concept has brand new potential. Type One Energy, a startup based in Tennessee, claims to have proven that fusion energy will be able to produce electricity in the next decade.
“It’s going to create heat that’s going to boil water, make steam, run a turbine and put fusion electrons on the power grid on a 24/7 reliable basis,” said Type One Christofer Mowry.
AI has made it all practical.
“Things have really accelerated remarkably over the last five or six years,” Mowry said. “The supercomputers have allowed industry, academia and large institutions to develop now and actually test at large scale the science machines that demonstrate the process.”
Dozens of other companies are working on different approaches to fusion energy, but Mowry said Type One is so far the only one with the proven stellarator technology to implement at existing power plants. It will soon be tested with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
TDK Ventures is betting that Mowry is right.
“With Type One Energy solutions, we expect outsized return potential,” said Nicola Sauvage, president of TDK Ventures. “Fusion is no longer science fiction, and Type One Energy’s technology is catching up fast to the vision of this low-cost, continuous green energy.”
Type One is also backed by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Centaurus Capital, GD1, Foxglove Capital, and SeaX Ventures, and has raised a total of $82.4 million.
Fusion energy is different from nuclear power, and there’s no risk of a nuclear accident. The power source has no long-term radioactive waste, and, according to Mowry, can’t be weaponized.
But for handling AI, it could be a critical solution. Fusion energy can be deployed anywhere, whether it’s next to a data center or near a large industrial park that needs clean, reliable energy.
Michael Intrator, Founder & CEO of CoreWeave, Inc., Nvidia-backed cloud services provider, gestures during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq Market, in New York City, U.S., March 28, 2025.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
CoreWeave shares popped 19% after announcing a $2 billion debt offering.
The renter of artificial intelligence data centers powered by Nvidia chips said it had priced the notes at 9.25%, with a June 2030 maturity date. The deal represents a $500 million increase from its initial announcement.
CoreWeave said it plans to use the capital to pay off outstanding debt. The company confirmed to CNBC that the debt offering was five times oversubscribed.
In its first-quarter earnings report last week, CoreWeave said that it raised a total of $17.2 billion in equity and debt “to support its strategy to drive the next generation of cloud computing for the future of AI.” The company topped revenues expectations but posted wider-than-expected net loss and said it plans to spend big on capital expenditures to support infrastructure demand.
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During an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” last week, CEO Michael Intrator defended CoreWeave’s spending plans after some investors cast doubt on its debt, and demand durability. He said the company is meeting “demand signals” from some of its major clients.
In a call with analysts, CoreWeave said it has no debt maturities until 2028 other than payments related to vendor financing and “self-amortizing debt through committed contract payments.” The company said it had about $3.8 billion in current debt and $4.9 billion in non-current debt at the end of the quarter.
A year ago, CoreWeave announced that it had raised $7.5 billion in debt, led by Blackstone and Magnetar, to more heavily invest in its cloud data centers. CoreWeave said in its IPO prospectus that it was “one of the largest private debt financings in history and signals the confidence that debt investors have in funding our company to build and scale the next generation AI cloud.”
CoreWeave counts Nvidia and Microsoft among its biggest customers and has signed two seperate deals with OpenAI, totaling nearly $16 billion.
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks during an unveiling event in New York on Feb. 26, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday that the company hasn’t seen any signs of consumers tightening their wallets in the face of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
Jassy’s comments came during Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting, which was held virtually on Wednesday.
“We have not seen any attenuation of demand at this point,” Jassy said during a question-and-answer portion of the meeting. “We also haven’t yet seen any meaningful average selling price increases.”
Amazon and other retailers continue to digest the impact of Trump’s tariffs. Rival retailer Walmartwarned last week that consumers could start seeing price hikes from tariffs later this month and in June. Within days, that sparked the ire of Trump, who urged the company to “EAT THE TARIFFS.”
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Targetsaid Wednesday it will likely need to hike prices on some items, while Home Depotsaid it expects to maintain its current pricing levels.
Jassy said last month the company made some “strategic forward inventory buys” to stock up on goods and is “pretty maniacally focused” on keeping prices low for shoppers.
Some third-party sellers, which account for roughly 60% of products sold, have increased prices on certain items, while others have opted to keep prices steady, Jassy said on Wednesday.
“I think that the diversity and the size of our marketplace really helps customers have the best selection of the best prices,” Jassy said.