Nokia’s CEO is talking up its involvement in AI, stock jumps 7%
Finnish telecoms and once iconic phone maker Nokia reported better-than-expected Q4 results Thursday morning, with quarterly net sales climbing 10% to €5.98 billion ($6.2 billion) and comparable group net profit up 81%, per The Wall Street Journal — sending shares up 7% in early trading.
The profit growth was in part due to a surge in demand for network infrastructure from mobile operators in North America and India, with sales of this sector increasing by 17%. But beyond grids and telephone poles, Nokia is looking to diversify — in particular, by cashing in on the AI boom.
Off the back of signing a $2.3 billion deal in June to acquire optical networking equipment specialist Infinera, the company plans to continue forging a path into the burgeoning data center market. In the Q4 earnings release, CEO Pekka Lundmark outlined intentions to “broaden our addressable market in data center IP networking” by investing up to an additional €100 million in the year ahead.
Speaking with Reuters, Lundmark expressed optimism for Nokia’s position in providing services for ventures like the $500 billion Stargate plan: “We have interest in all data centres and assuming that the Stargate project will deliver, it will be an exciting market opportunity for us.”
The profit growth was in part due to a surge in demand for network infrastructure from mobile operators in North America and India, with sales of this sector increasing by 17%. But beyond grids and telephone poles, Nokia is looking to diversify — in particular, by cashing in on the AI boom.
Off the back of signing a $2.3 billion deal in June to acquire optical networking equipment specialist Infinera, the company plans to continue forging a path into the burgeoning data center market. In the Q4 earnings release, CEO Pekka Lundmark outlined intentions to “broaden our addressable market in data center IP networking” by investing up to an additional €100 million in the year ahead.
Speaking with Reuters, Lundmark expressed optimism for Nokia’s position in providing services for ventures like the $500 billion Stargate plan: “We have interest in all data centres and assuming that the Stargate project will deliver, it will be an exciting market opportunity for us.”
