Nokia CEO gives thumbs up for India’s 5G roadmap

NEW DELHI: As the global penetration rates for both fibre and 5G excluding China still remain very low, Nokia is bullish on the 5G roadmap in India which is an important country for the company, its President and CEO Pekka Lundmark has said.

Speaking to analysts after its Q2 earnings call, the Nokia CEO said “we have to remember there are countries and regions which haven’t even really started in 5G yet.”

“Obviously, India is one of the most important ones here. Latin America, the same thing. It’s only starting. So that’s why we do believe that we are still early in the 5G cycle,” he told the analysts late on Thursday.

The penetration of 5G sites is only 15 per cent outside of China in the world. “North America is obviously ahead of some other markets, and I refer to India, which has not even started yet. There is then the Enterprise side, the enterprise digitalisation side, which is only now picking up,” said Lundmark.

On 5G growth, he said this does not mean that we would be immune to any macroeconomic cycles. “Of course, they do play a role, but all we can comment on is what we are seeing today,” the Nokia CEO added.

“Even though our business is not immune to macro trends, we continue to see strong investment trends in connectivity, particularly into 5G and fibre deployments,” he said.

In Q2, Nokia’s net sales grew 3 per cent in constant currency, in spite of continuing supply chain challenges. Gross margin was 40.6 per cent and operating margin 12.2 per cent, reflecting good progress in both mobile networks and network infrastructure,” Lundmark informed.

On Nokia’s Cloud and Network Services, net sales were stable in the quarter. “For the first half of the year, we saw growth of 3 per cent and good progress in both gross margin and operating margin. Clearly, the second quarter was a bit weaker, but the first quarter was strong, said the company.