Then how about Motorola, a US company in the same market segment, which also failed?

No, bad example. Nokia failed because they were using windows mobile instead of Android.

In 2011 Nokia started using windows phone os which, at the time, no one knew if it was going to catch on. In 2014 Microsoft bought the phone division and kept the OS although at that point it was clear that it was not going to work out. Operation stopped in 2017.

Surely Apple is an example of working smarter rather than harder?

it's of both. Nokia was heavily constrained by the Finnish labor laws and working culture.

Listening to people who worked at Nokia before shut down there was a lot of wasted time and effort on products that lead nowhere. They missed the boat with the smart phones. It took too long for Nokia to come out with a smart phone line and it was plagued with hardware design flaws. Then they gambled on the OS and rest is history.

Had Nokia jumped on board of the smart phone grace right off the bat and supported Google instead of Microsoft the scene might be way different.

It's hard to predict an alternate future, but by the time the adopted Windows they were already in a bad position.

To put it simply, they missed the transition to smartphones, just like Blackberry. They were in control of their OS, it makes sense they didn't want to give it away before it became clear that they couldn't do it.

They had Symbian, which was old and crappy, and Maemo then Meego which apparently, they didn't push enough. The real winning move would have been to bet everything on Meego, bring in the partners they have with Symbian before Android took the market. They didn't do it because they were clinging to the dying Symbian.

Honestly, if they had adopted Android right away I'm not sure they would have been able to compete against HTC/LG/Samsung and other Asian companies.