Nokia Oyj Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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April 24, 2025
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David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Nokia's first quarter twenty twenty five results call. I'm David Mulholland, Head of Nokia Investor Relations, and today with me is Justin Hautard, our President and CEO, along with Marco Varenne, our CFO. Before we get started, a quick disclaimer. During this call, we will be making forward looking statements regarding our future business, transactions and financial performance, and these statements are predictions that involve risks and uncertainties.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results we currently expect. Factors that could cause such differences can be both external as well as internal operating factors. We have identified such risks in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 20 F, which which is available on our Investor Relations website. Within today's presentation, references to growth rates will be mostly on a constant currency and portfolio basis, and this is basically to take into account both acquisitions that we've done and looked at on a like for like basis, if they'd been present in both periods, along with any disposals. Where we refer to margins, it will be based on our comparable reporting.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Please note that our Q1 report and the presentation that accompanies this call are published on our website. The report includes both reported and comparable financial results and a reconciliation between the two. In terms of the agenda for today's call, Justin will go through some of the key messages from the quarter, and then Marco will go through the financial performance before we move to Q and A. With that, let me hand over to Justin.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Thank you, David, and let me also welcome you to our conference call today. I'm honored to have been given the opportunity to lead Nokia. Nokia is a true global leader in connectivity with a strong heritage in technology. While I will share my initial observations with you today, please bear in mind it has only been three weeks since I started. I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming months and ultimately presenting our complete value creation vision for Nokia at a Capital Markets Day that we will hold in November.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

I also look forward to meeting with many of our shareholders and analysts in the coming months as I ramp up. I've already had some great engagements with some of our customers, employees, and other key stakeholders. I'm impressed by our core technology base and the strength of our portfolio, including in RAN and core, as well as across IP optical and fiber networking technologies. We have a very strong base of products and services, and I think that is well recognized by our customers. It is also clear from my initial customer conversations that we are a critical trusted partner for their mobile and fixed infrastructure.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

In addition, we have significant potential to expand our presence in hyperscale enterprise and defense markets. In the time I've spent with our employees, I've been impressed with their innovative spirit, energy and drive to unlock Nokia's full potential. Going forward, I will be focusing on our approach to capital allocation. I will ensure that we continue to both drive for efficiency and invest sufficiently in the right growth segments to deliver long term value. I see opportunities across our portfolio to accelerate the transformation that is already underway.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Turning to our Q1 financial performance, we continued to see encouraging signs of market recovery with solid order growth across the businesses. In

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

the

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

first quarter, our net sales declined 3% year over year. However, when you adjust for the over €400,000,000 of catch up net sales in Nokia Technologies, net sales grew 7%. Specifically, we grew 11% in network infrastructure, with all units growing, and particularly had strong growth in optical networks at 15%. Cloud and network services grew 8% with strong demand for five gs core, and had significant wins at AT and T, Boost Mobile, Oradu Qatar and Telefonica. Mobile networks continued to see sales stabilize, growing 2% in the quarter.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

I'm pleased to share that today we've also announced an extension of our RAN agreement with T Mobile US. Our profitability in the quarter was impacted by the catch up net sales in Nokia Technologies in the prior year, along with a one time contract settlement in mobile networks of €120,000,000 Operating margin in network infrastructure expanded 190 basis points, and cloud and network services expanded nine thirty basis points. Our free cash flow performance in the quarter was also strong at over €700,000,000 resulting in a net cash position of €3,000,000,000 at the end of the quarter. Let me now touch on the current environment. While we are not immune to the evolving global trade landscape, my initial customer feedback indicates that our markets should prove to be relatively resilient.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Considering this, we continue to expect strong growth in network infrastructure, growth in cloud and network services, and largely stable net sales in mobile networks. We are actively monitoring the situation and staying closely engaged with our customers. With the visibility we have today, we expect tariffs could have a 20,000,000 to €30,000,000 impact to our operating profit in Q2. Our supply chain teams are proactively working to further mitigate the exposure, leveraging our global manufacturing network. Therefore, our guidance remains unchanged.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

It should be noted, however, that considering the unexpected charge that impacted mobile networks in the quarter, achieving the top end of the operating profit range will now be more challenging. For clarity, considering the volatility of the situation, we have not taken an assumption related to tariffs in our second half of twenty twenty five, and the integration of Infinera does not meaningfully impact the range. The final topic I want to touch on this morning is the Infinera acquisition. Based on my initial assessment, I'm convinced of its value creation potential and confident we will achieve the expected synergies. As a quick reminder, this acquisition brings a number of significant benefits.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

It gives us the scale to accelerate our product roadmaps and to drive more innovation. It also increases our access to hyperscale customers, which are a key growth driver in both cloud and AI data center investments. Finally, it's a complementary acquisition in terms of the customer, geographic and technology profile. The Q1 performance illustrated a number of these points clearly, with strong momentum in the business. Optical networks grew 15% in the quarter, as I mentioned, and with a book to bill above one.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

As a part of the integration, we've already made many portfolio decisions and communicated them to customers. Their feedback continues to be positive, and we are on track to achieve the synergy targets. While this progress is encouraging, there is still a lot of work ahead of us. With that, let me hand over to Marco to go through the financials in more detail.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Thanks, Justin, and hello from my side as well. I will start by discussing our overall group performance. Q1 net sales declined 3% on a constant currency and portfolio basis. As Justin explained, we saw strong growth in both network infrastructure and cloud and network services, while mobile networks also grew somewhat. These were offset by a challenging comparison in Nokia technologies, as the year ago quarter benefited from over 400,000,000 of catch up net sales, related to licensing deals signed in the quarter.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Our gross margin decreased by eight twenty basis points to 42.3%, and this was mainly a result of the lower Nokia Technologies net sales, and it was also impacted by the one off settlement charge in mobile networks. This in addition to higher OpEx and a currency related loss in Nokia venture funds, led to 3.6% operating margin in Q1. Pleasingly, we generated over 700,000,000 of free cash flow in the quarter, and ended quarter with a 3,000,000,000 of net cash, which I will go into more detail on shortly. Now, turning to financial performance per business group. First, network infrastructure, they delivered a strong 11% growth.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

This reflected growth across each of the business units, as optical networks had a particularly strong quarter growing 15, fixed networks and IP networks grew 97% respectively. Gross margin was relatively stable, while operating margin expanded 190 basis points year on year to 7.8%. And this was mainly the result of the higher net sales offsetting increased investments into growth opportunities. The stabilization in mobile networks continued in Q1, with the net sales growing 2%, the net sales in North America grew at double digit pace, as they were low levels of investment activity in the year ago quarter. India also returned to growth within the APAC region, while EMEA sales declined.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Gross margin declined 10 percentage points to 30.9%, reflecting the one off contract settlement, which had a net impact of €120,000,000,000 If you exclude this mobile networks gross margin would have been more aligned with the normalized gross margin range of 38 to 39%, we had seen during '24. Operating margin was negative 8.8, mainly the result of the lower gross margin. Turning to cloud and network services, the net sales grew by 8% in the quarter, reflecting continued momentum in core networks, and mainly in five gs core. From a regional perspective, CNS saw broad based growth with strength in India. The higher level of net sales drove strong expansion in both gross and operating margin, giving the business a strong start to the year.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

And turning now to Nokia Technologies, net sales declined 52%, but this was entirely due to a challenging comparison in the year ago quarter, which benefited from over 400,000,000 of catch up net sales. This was somewhat offset by the deals signed over the past twelve months, and catch up net sales booked in the quarter related to agreements signed in quarter one. Nokia Technologies continue to execute and sign a deal with Amazon, in addition to other smaller deals. The annual net sales run rate has now increased to approximately 1,400,000,000.0, despite a headwind from recent currency movements. Let's now look at the net sales per region, And a few things to point out here.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

First, you can see that North America was once again, one of the biggest contributors to the net sales growth. And we saw strong growth across each of the networks business groups with particular strength in network infrastructure and mobile networks. India returned to growth, mainly driven by network infrastructure, and especially by fixed networks, where we benefited from a strong fixed wireless access demand. India also grew in mobile networks and cloud and network services. Europe saw a sizable decline, but this was mostly driven by Nokia technologies, as all its net sales are booked in this region.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Excluding this, net sales in Europe would have declined 7%. A couple of words about our cash performance in quarter one, which generated over 700,000,000 in free cash flow, and as we saw sizable inflows related to net working capital. And this came mainly from the seasonal decline in receivables, we typically see in Q1. We ended the quarter with 3,000,000,000 in net cash. As you can see on the slide, the decline in net cash mainly reflected the acquisition of Infinera with cash outflows in the quarter.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

And this consisted of cash proceeds related to Infinera equity, the convertibles, as well as the share buybacks we did to offset the dilution from the Nokia shares issued as part of the deal. As a reminder, when modeling quarter two cash, this is when you see the outflows related to our '24 performance related employee variable pay. Finally, moving to our 2025 outlook, which remains unchanged, we continue to expect our '25 comparable operating profit to be in the range of 1.9 to 2,400,000,000.0. However, given the unexpected charge that impacted mobile networks, it will be more challenging to achieve the top end of this range. We continue to expect free cash flow conversion to be 50% to 80% of comparable operating profit.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

And with that, let me hand it over to David for Q and A.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thank you, Justin and Marco, for your comments. As usual for the q and a session, as a courtesy to others in the queue, could you please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up? Sasha, could you please give the instructions?

Operator

We now begin the question and answer session. If you're also viewing the webcast, please remember to mute the audio on your computer before asking your question as there is a thirty seconds delay. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. I'll hand back the call to Mr. David Mulholland.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Ashu. We'll take the first question from Alexander Duval from Goldman Sachs. Alex, please go ahead.

Alexander Duval
Alexander Duval
Equity Research Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Yes, many thanks for the question. You mentioned that T Mobile USA contract extension. I wondered if you could give some color on duration and how important this is and what it implies to Nokia product positioning? And then perhaps as a quick follow-up, you highlighted a growing backlog in the network infrastructure segment, clearly against the uncertain macro. It'd be helpful to get a sense of what the key factors have been in this regard and how you see this going forward.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, absolutely, Alex. A couple of things. I'll start with T Mobile. First of all, we have a broad and deep partnership across the group company with T Mobile in The US. While we aren't sharing a lot of details on the contract, what we can share is it's a significant multi year extension in our RAN contract.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

We think that this is a great opportunity for us to partnership to shape the next chapter of mobile connectivity in The US with T Mobile, who's clearly an innovative leader in this space. We're optimistic that this will continue to drive growth for us with T Mobile. Regarding network infrastructure, your second question, I think this is obviously very consistent with the rationale that we've shared on the Infinera acquisition and the comments that I made. This is about giving us incremental access in The US, which is a high growth geography, and of course, with hyperscale customers who are driving much of the AI and data center build. And the way I think about the market in AI, particularly with optical is, if you look at the build out of data center, what's happening with AI is it's driving, as we all know, significant new data center build, but it's also driving new connectivity demands between data centers, both whether it's for training or inference or some of the convergence we're seeing with AI reasoning models.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

So this is a favorable trend for us. It's also notable that we're starting to see optical come into the data center, and you're seeing that and if you you listen and look to some of the industry spend. The other key thing I'll highlight is, when you think about networking as a whole, and now I'm talking about our optical and IP networks business, you think about networking and AI, it's actually the second largest bucket of technology spend behind GPUs. And this probably doesn't get emphasized enough, but from our perspective, this is why we felt that Infinera was so strategic. The net of all of that is if you look at our growth in the quarter, what was as encouraging was the point that I touched on that our book to bill was above one, both for NI as a whole, and for optical networks.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Alex. We'll take our next question from Daniel Djerberg from Handelsbanken. Daniel, please go ahead.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst - Technology at Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Thanks very much and good morning, gentlemen, and welcome aboard, Justin. A question first, a detail on Infinera. It was reported from February 28 '30 first of March and did a loss of SEK 31,000,000. That surprised me a bit at least given that I thought March was holding on to roughly 60% of revenues in the quarter and should be supported to margins. So my question is, did you do any kitchen sinking in this SEK 31,000,000 loss?

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst - Technology at Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Or should we have this level in our estimates going forward or higher or even lower, I should say?

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Yeah, thank you, Daniel. This is Marco. I will take this one. And as we have now trying to give you as good picture of the run rate basis and that's why we have basically given this Infinera figures in our report also in pro form a basis, so you can compare how would that look like if we would have had that already from 01/01/2024, in all comparisons as well. So that loss that you're referring to is quarter one.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Closed the deal in February 28. So we actually booked only March month in our books, and in March, actually, had a positive results. And I would say that if you look how Infineero was performing in 2024, including the stock based compensation in their operating profit level, then actually see that they were loss making last year. And this was something that we explained as well when we acquired that there's a scale issue with Infinera and together with Nokia and our optical, we get totally different scale. And that's why we are quite confident about the synergies of 200,000,000 that we have explained as well that we will target to receive here in three years time.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

And we believe that we will definitely see acceleration in 2025 as well in Infinera's performance and our optical. But as we mentioned also that Infinera itself, it's not the needle mover for our operating profit in 2025.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thank you, Daniel. Did you have a quick follow-up?

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst - Technology at Handelsbanken Capital Markets

The mobile

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst - Technology at Handelsbanken Capital Markets

you hear me?

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Yep. Yes. Go ahead.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst - Technology at Handelsbanken Capital Markets

Perfect. Yeah. A short follow-up on mobile networks. Can you give some lights on the quite dramatic onetime contract settlement over the SEK 120,000,000 in the quarter? Should we correlate this with the news of T Mobile U.

Daniel Djurberg
Senior Equity Analyst - Technology at Handelsbanken Capital Markets

S. Extension? Or and also can this happen again? Why where should we be as a shareholder here?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, thank you, Daniel, and it's nice to meet you as well. Let unpack this a little bit. So first of all, we're not disclosing the customer related to this. This was a customer specific project that was from 2019. And I think as probably you're aware, we've had a significant amount of work and significant amount of investment we've made to stabilize and bring back the competitiveness of our portfolio, really over the last four to five years.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

So this actually goes back and predates that. Surprise here was that, as this has been going on, and we've been working on remediating this issue, the discussions were ongoing, but we did not have full visibility to the total cost. And this was a gap in terms of our assessment of the cost. And as we spent time with the customer, the cost became clear to remediate the issue, and therefore we made the decision to take a charge. In fact, this was something as I looked at it, I felt it was important to do a couple of things.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

One was take a charge that fully addresses the situation. As importantly, if not more importantly, number two was make sure we're doing what the customer needs, so that with this specific project, we're addressing their needs fully to their satisfaction given the issue. And then number three, obviously, you know, put this into our comparable operating profit, because it's not a while it's a one time issue. It's not something that's non operating. And so that was important for me in terms of the principles.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

In addition, I'll make a couple of other comments. Again, this was a customer specific project, we don't see risk with other customers. Obviously, as I've come in, and I made this decision, one of the key questions I have for the MN team is making sure we have learnings from this, and we improve visibility. But at this time, we don't foresee any other issues like this. And of course, this goes back to a project that again, was during a time where we know we had some portfolio issues that we've subsequently addressed.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

So I'm confident that this is a one time issue specific to this project. However, obviously there's things that I will be looking at for how we continue to improve our operational visibility, as I come in and continue to spend time with the team.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Daniel. We'll take our next question from Richard Kramer from Arete. Richard, please go ahead.

Richard Kramer
Senior Analyst at Arete research

Thanks very much. Justin, we heard for many years from Basil and then Pekka and others about long promised hyperscaler deals. What do you, from your perspective, think is required to win these large AI sort of data center deals? Is it money in terms of incremental r and d and product investment? Is it time to test new products like you're switching products?

Richard Kramer
Senior Analyst at Arete research

What's the unlock for those deals? Thanks.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Thank you, Richard. First of all, I think there's a couple of things. One is our portfolio, particularly in IP networks, and to a large extent, optical networks, has really been oriented towards the telecommunication service providers. I think there's a couple things that have happened, and certainly if you look at it versus, let's say, legacy enterprise IP networks. One is the scale and the bandwidth that customers are demanding in hyperscale, largely driven, not only by AI, but also by cloud, has started to come into a more consistent technology stack with our traditional telecommunications solutions.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

The second thing there is the reliability and the performance, which is just much higher. And so I think the cloud and AI build with our hyperscale customers, they're now expecting and demanding the same kinds of capabilities. I think this has opened up opportunities that make us more relevant. I think further, candidly is, we're now investing much more aggressively in this opportunity, and that's witnessed by the Infinera acquisition and optical. I do think you, you know, in your question, you touched on something that's insightful and important, which is the cycle with these customers is different.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

It's a different cycle, it requires, you know, some collaboration and co development upfront, and it takes time to see the revenue come in and grow. And so, while it's a more transactional business on specific orders, getting designed in, getting support takes time. And I think that's obviously going back to Infinera, that's one of the things that was attractive about Infinera was their work and their development of some of these customers and the investments they made on the optical side. I do think there's a lot of learnings and leverage there as we look at the IP networks.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Did you have a quick follow-up, Richard?

Richard Kramer
Senior Analyst at Arete research

Marco, with the Amazon licensing deal as a positive example, will Nokia be increasing the long standing sort of $100,000,000 of non smartphone IP sales guidance in technologies?

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Yes.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Thank you. I think in December 23, we mentioned that we had about 150,000,000 level of non smartphone licensing deals, and we haven't updated that figures since then, but most likely at the Capital Markets Day later this year, we will give you more flavor on that as well. We're quite happy to see how these other segments have been increasing and developing, and this latest deal is one of those proof points as well, we're quite happy.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Richard. Take our next question from Ulrik Roth from Bernstein. Ulrik, please go ahead.

Ulrich Rathe
Director at Bernstein

Yes, thank you. I wanted to ask on a sort of

Ulrich Rathe
Director at Bernstein

bit of color on the 20,000,000 to 30 million euros tariff impact. What are the underlying assumptions? What are the puts and takes? Can you flex the or reassign the capacity you have in the Infinera facilities? What is the demand situation for the relatively limited contract manufacturing base that is actually located within The U.

Ulrich Rathe
Director at Bernstein

S? I mean, I suppose everyone who's doing similar things is currently sort of trying to talk to those people. Could you just unravel that a little bit in terms of where the limits are and what you're doing, what you can do, really what you have assumed there with the 20 to 30,000,000?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, absolutely, I think, let me just maybe touch on a couple things to make sure we're breaking out our assumptions. So our focus in the 20 to 30,000,000 is really around the cost impact. We've not assumed anything in pricing in this assessment, So it's just on our own costs, so that's the first point. The second point is, this is based on what we've seen today, or what our current perspective is on the situation. That's why we're so focused on Q2, because obviously this is a very dynamic situation.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

My message to the team, and Marco's as well, is let's make sure we focus on what we can control. And so we're really looking at the impact based on a short term impact, given the supply chain, the manufacturing network we have. Obviously, we're looking at things we can do to mitigate it, both in the short term and strategically. One thing I will just also note is, we actually have five manufacturing facilities in The US today, two that are coming within Finera with the acquisition, and three others preexisting. So the key thing for us is making sure we're mitigating the impact short term, so we can provide supply continuity to our customers.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And obviously, one of the reasons we've not provided visibility in the second half is given the dynamic situation, we're unclear on exactly what the situation will be going into the second half. But there's a set of mitigation that we're evaluating and pursuing that's beyond just the second quarter, and we're evaluating longer term strategic options as well. Though I will tell you, I was planning on that anyway, as we think about our, I think about some of the options for the business as I come in and assess the business, that's something I would look at naturally.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Did you have a quick follow-up, Ulrik?

Ulrich Rathe
Director at Bernstein

Yes, that's very helpful. And my follow-up would be on the divisional guidance not guidance, how would you call it, divisional indications that you gave for the fourth quarter. I know you haven't repeated them. Does that mean you have changed your views on the divisions at this point already? Or is this still in place?

Ulrich Rathe
Director at Bernstein

Or can you give us additional color on these divisional items that you talked about in the fourth quarter? Thank you.

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Yeah, thank you. And we continue to reiterate what we said in the fourth quarter as well, that we believe that in network infrastructure, we see strong growth in 2025. And then, of course, we are investing also additional 100,000,000 for the IP side to capture those opportunities in hyperscaler and data center segments. When it comes to mobile networks, we see a stable development, even if we had this headwind in AT and T, as you remember, and then on cloud and network services, we see a good growth momentum, specifically on the core side. And when it comes to Nokia technologies, we are giving approximately 1,100,000,000.0 operating profit assumption.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks Ulrik. And we'll take our next question from Simon Leopold from Raymond James. Simon, please go ahead.

Simon Leopold
Simon Leopold
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

Thank you very much, David, and Justin, welcome to Nokia. Justin, I wanted to see what you thought would be maybe any contrast between your views and your predecessors' views. And I guess within this context, what surprised you most since joining Nokia? Then I've got a quick follow-up.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Thanks, Simon. Good to speak with you again. I think a couple of things, touched on some of these observations in my commentary, but I was pleasantly surprised by the technology base. And we've talked a lot about the product technology, the product portfolio that we have. I also was able to spend a day at Nokia Bell Labs during the Centennial celebration and tour some of the labs, and was actually very impressed with some of the longer term technology that we have under researched there as well, and the potential for that.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And just seeing this across, obviously a few different companies, and knowing the broader landscape like I do, just was pleasantly surprised with the progress that we've made around commercialization. I think that goes back to some of the principles of Nokia Bell Labs and their heritage. The other thing is, I've been very impressed with the employee base, I touched on this in my comments, but maybe just to underscore it, I think that the passion that the employees have, team's mindset around really taking advantage of some of these opportunities, the openness and learning mindset they have around continuing to evolve the business. So I I think for me, that's probably key things I'd say in terms of highlights. As I think about, and again, I touched a little bit on some comments, but maybe just to underscore it a little bit, Simon, as I think about opportunities, for me, there's always been two focuses.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And if you go, you certainly go back to, you know, some of the companies I've worked for before, one of the things is around driving efficiencies, and driving efficiencies in areas that are not to our growth. In the areas that are core to our growth, they're gonna be R and D investment and go to market investment, whether it's organic, which is obviously always the preference, or inorganic, where we have opportunities to make smart acquisitions that we can synergize both in terms of cost structure and revenue. But I think the other thing I look at quite a bit is where are the opportunities for us to drive meaningful scale value in the company? This is a $20,000,000,000 company. And so therefore, as we look at growth segments, and we look at investments we need to make, we're gonna look at things that really move the needle and drive material growth.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And obviously, the profit profile we have, and even if you look at our current guidance, we need things over time, they're gonna be additive to the overall profit to such that drive meaningful cash flow for the business. And so those two things are really where I think I, know, as I come in, I think that's where you're gonna probably see a little bit of focus for me is making sure we have the discipline to say, Hey, this may be an exciting opportunity, but it's not going to be material enough to our impact to impact our business. These may be things that you know, we could actually spend a little bit more on. And I think that's another thing that we see quite a bit with, technology companies that when they spend enough to win. So are there places we can spend more in these areas to really differentiate ourselves or get an advantage vis a vis our competitors, and provide value to our customers that's unique?

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

On your follow-up Yeah,

Simon Leopold
Simon Leopold
Managing Director at Raymond James Financial

I wanted to see if we could double click on the traction with the hyperscale cloud customers, since you include that within your enterprise numbers. I believe that with the Infinera acquisition, it would roughly double the past run rate. So I want to check on where you stand in this business and the trajectory, particularly interested in whether you're gaining traction in switching use cases yet, or the timing of that particular traction. Thank you.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yep, I think a couple of things I'll just touch on, Simon. I think first of all, obviously we reported in an enterprise bucket. It's very clear to me coming in that hyperscale enterprise are two different markets, right? And so just to make sure that we're, I'm articulating that clearly to you, for me is a hyperscale and AI data center in particular, are a key focus for us. Obviously, when you talk about some of the growth that we had, we talked about it quite a bit in the context of the optical networking business, and our portfolio that we acquired through Infinera.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

I think these are clearly where we're seeing the most growth today. I do believe there is opportunity and some early activity in IP networks. And as I touched on earlier, in an answer to the earlier question, I do think there's a bit of a longer cycle that we need to expect in terms of IP networks and seeing that revenue grow, you know, vis a vis the customers in this space. Those investments have happened already in optical, and particularly with some of the things that attracted us to Infinera. The one other comment I'll make is, in the fourth quarter earnings call, Pekka and Marco talked about the investment of €100,000,000 per year to drive an incremental billion in sales in 'twenty eight, specifically around this networking opportunity.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

I think as I look at the portfolio, one of my questions obviously is how big is that opportunity for us? How much more can we do there? And candidly, do we have the right technology stack to maximize value to customers? And I think there's positive indications, but obviously I'll be looking at what we may need to evolve or do incrementally to accelerate that growth.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Simon. And we'll take our next question from Artem Beletsky from SEB. Artem, please go ahead.

Artem Beletski
Analyst at SEB

Yes, hi, and thank you for taking my questions. So I would like to ask about NII and outlook for this year. So you are still anticipating strong growth this year. Could you maybe provide some further color how do you see the progress by subdivisions? So what we have seen in Q1 is really optical networks showing the best growth on organic basis.

Artem Beletski
Analyst at SEB

How do you view the year for different areas here?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Maybe I'll start and let Marco add some comments, but I think, from my perspective, I think if you look at the businesses, and I've been talking around this to just make it very explicit in the different questions, I think we see the biggest opportunity for growth this year in optical. I believe IP networks is the next largest opportunity for us. I think for IP, I'm as focused on seeing traction and momentum with hyperscalers in terms of orders, as well revenue in the year, but I do think it's the next piece. And then fixed networks is a, you know, is a more predictable, stable growing business, right? We are continuing to see demand for fiber.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

We talked a little bit about fixed wireless access, as well you know, as something that contributed to our growth in the first quarter. But this is an area where I think we also need to realize that that business is not growing at the pace of optical or IP, given, you know, from an end market perspective. And so from a TAM, as we think about TAM and how we're addressing it, I think it's optical IP fixed networks. Marco, anything you would add to

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Yeah, I think just to build on what you said when it comes to optical and Infinera, we were quite pleased to see as well that in quarter one optical order intake Infinera side was very good and very strong on the hyperscaler side, actually better than what we expected as well. And when it comes to fixed networks, this year, we will definitely see India coming back again. And you saw already in quarter one, and the fixed wireless growth of 9%, partly driven by fixed wireless access in India and that we will see that that will continue as well. And of course, we continue to pursue those hyperscaler and CSP opportunities in IP side as we go and invest more specifically on the IP data center side.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Did you have a quick follow-up, Barton?

Artem Beletski
Analyst at SEB

Yes, I had. So as a quick follow-up, it's actually relating to mobile networks. And one metric what you have been providing more recently is net footprint gains, and I think the latest commentary at Mobile World Congress was plus 30 ks compared to the situation at the year end of 2023. Are you willing to provide some update on this front, especially given T Mobile renewal?

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Yeah, thank you. What we have now said is that what we see for this year, growth wise, and we said that mobile networks is stabilizing. Otherwise we haven't given any more indication on mobile networks and we will have a Capital Mortgage Day later this year and we will give you more understanding of the mobile networks business as a whole and I hope that you will get more food for thought from that event as well.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Artem. Thanks, We'll take the next question from Sami Sarkamis from Danske Bank. Sami, please go ahead.

Sami Sarkamies
Head of TMT & Equity Research at Danske Bank

Hi. I would like to

Sami Sarkamies
Head of TMT & Equity Research at Danske Bank

get a bit more color on enterprise sales, which were the bright spot in the report with 27% organic growth. Can you be a bit more specific on what drove the growth in terms of product areas or regions? And do you expect to maintain this momentum in the coming quarters as well?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, so Sammy, so enterprise sales, as I just touched on in a previous question, in our definition has included hyperscale, which is really what the growth driver was. And again, this was really driven by optical and more acutely by Infinera. And again, this is right back to the core thesis of what we talked about. The other point geographically, is that this was largely in The US. So as you think about this, a lot of the growth and really validating your early thesis on Infinera, came in that segment.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Did you have a quick follow-up, Sami?

Sami Sarkamies
Head of TMT & Equity Research at Danske Bank

Yes. Maybe related to the Amazon video IPR licensing deal. Can you explain why it didn't contain any catch up elements even though they've been violating Nokia IPR for a number of years? And is the implication that we will not be seeing those in the future deals either?

Marco Wirén
CFO at Nokia

Yes, know Sami, usually these deals are confidential and when it comes to terms and conditions, so we cannot go into details of those. We can just say that we are happy to see that we amicably signed the deal, and this also ended all the litigation issues that we had with Amazon. And we said that in quarter one, we had some catch up payments related to this agreement, but we cannot give any more details on that. Justin, do you want to add anything?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yes, just two things. I think one is, we're pleased overall with Tech's net sales run rate. Nokia Technologies has now increased to €1,400,000,000 in terms of a net sales run rate. This is in line with our 1,400,000,000.0 to 1,500,000,000.0 guide. I think that's a good thing.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Then just back to Amazon, this is a very important customer, very important hyperscale customer for us across certainly our NI business as well. And then they're also an important partner for us in terms of our cloud and network services business as well as a public cloud where we're running certain platforms and services, there's been announcements around that publicly. I think for me, I really look at this as a three sixty relationship, and obviously this is one element. It's important to recognize that there's other value in the partnership beyond just a tech licensing agreement.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Helmy. We'll take our next question from Francois Bivenier from UBS. Francois, please go ahead.

Francois-Xavier Bouvignies
Francois-Xavier Bouvignies
Head - Europe Tech Hardware & Semiconductor at UBS Group

Thank you very much. My first question would be on a very high level. I mean, Justin, you talked about capital allocation as your main priority and focusing on growth. Now Nokia, before you joined, was already focusing a lot on network infrastructure. And obviously, what you reported today is still fairly gross sector.

Francois-Xavier Bouvignies
Francois-Xavier Bouvignies
Head - Europe Tech Hardware & Semiconductor at UBS Group

On top of that, you have your background, like coming from these hyperscalers side of things and mostly network infrastructure. So how does it fit your capital allocation priority with your mobile network assets in a way that you focus on growth, but it's an ex gross market effectively when you look at the rand forecast. So it seems difficult to get a lot of growth out of this market. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe you can highlight some you can get. So how important mobile network is for you in your capital allocation strategy?

Francois-Xavier Bouvignies
Francois-Xavier Bouvignies
Head - Europe Tech Hardware & Semiconductor at UBS Group

And in a broader question, like, is it something in your discussion, review of the business, network is also part of your discussion? Or is it how important is this for Nokia for the group?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Thank you, Francois. So a couple of comments. Think there were a couple of questions embedded in there, so I'm gonna answer sort of two questions, if I can. So one is on capital allocation. I think first of all, this is one of the most important parts of a CEO's role is capital allocation.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And when I think about capital allocation, I think about it in terms of how we allocate capital for R and D, capital for go to market, and also our intellectual capital. I think that's just as important, right, is how we apply our talent, cultivate and develop our talent. My focus is always gonna be around investing resources that maximize value. And there's always gonna be, there's also different stages in businesses where R and D intensity is higher versus lower, and the cycles that we go through. And I think if you look at our businesses, and this is where I'll get to the answer your question on MN, I think in my early observations on the businesses, these are very different And the way I think about it is, if you look at NI, NI is a business that is on a pretty aggressive cycle of investment right now, because of the AI and hyperscale build, but also the, if you look at the product cycles, traditionally in networking and optical, they've moved at a faster pace.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And there's a lot of work we can do through solutions and through, you know, continued R and D, and then close collaboration with our customers around that investment, particularly, I believe in hyperscale, there's more opportunity to do some of that and around AI cloud. If I look at MN, and I think it's also important, if you look at MN, the way I'm starting to think about the business is I think MN is a, Iran is one part of the business, but what makes us unique is that we are really one of two European players and two Western players that have a full portfolio in this space. We have a robust RAN portfolio, we have a robust core portfolio, which is a critical part of the mobile networks solution for our customers. And we have a robust IP portfolio in this space as well. And so when I look at that holistically, and that's the way I would think about it, I think there's significant areas for us to drive value capture.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

I'm very encouraged by the growth we're seeing in core, and the work that the cloud and network services team is doing. And when I look at the RAN business, I think the other thing I've observed is this is obviously a heavily project based business, because of the way these deals are sold and committed and then deployed, but it's also a scale business. And so that's a different, the scale business on the RAN side is a little bit different than what we see on NI. So, again, I've got some early thoughts, I'm sharing a little bit with you transparently in terms of how I'm thinking about the businesses. But as I spend more time with our customers, obviously with our employees, digging in more deeply into the technology stack, spending time obviously with our shareholders, I'll continue to refine my view of what, you know, where do I think the optimal value capture opportunities are.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And it's probably important to note as well, I didn't touch on it, but, you know, we've talked about some interesting emerging opportunities in enterprise and defense around RAN, and I am encouraged by what I think will be some favorable trends in RAN around defense, as I'm encouraged long term, that AI will drive new investment, new services, new value opportunities in the broader RAN marketplace. So both for defense, and I think your traditional telecommunication services, as you think about things in AI, you know, augmented reality, virtual reality, autonomous vehicles, robotics, all of them are going to need wireless communications, and that wireless communications will need to be performant, will need to be reliable, it will need to be secure. Those are things that are gonna require investment, and so I think while the business cycles are a little bit different, I do think there's a lot of value to be captured over time in the mobile networks business.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Francois. Did you have a quick follow-up? I think we'll move to our next question from Felix Henriksen from Nordea. Felix, please go ahead.

Felix Henriksson
Associate Director - Equity Research at Nordea Markets

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to ask if you witnessed any sort of a demand pull forward in MN or NI from your U. S. Customers during the first quarter in anticipation to the tariffs?

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

I think, Felix, we did not see anything that we would classify as a material impact in Q1. Obviously, we're spending a lot of time and looking at this for Q2. Today, we don't see a material shift in demand in Q2, but this is something, as I mentioned in my comments, we're spending time with our customers, both at my level, and obviously our broader teams levels, to understand and assess and be very responsive around that need, and that's something that we're also considering in terms of leveraging our global manufacturing network.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Did you have a quick follow-up, Felix?

Felix Henriksson
Associate Director - Equity Research at Nordea Markets

Yeah, yeah, follow-up relating to hyperscaler spend. Obviously, you called out strong growth in in that part of the business within enterprise, but I wanted to ask in light of this sort of talk about some of the hyperscalers such as Microsoft and Amazon freezing data center leasing talks, if you'd observed any sort of hesitancy in customer spend in this segment in your sales pipeline? Thank you.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, I think as we talked about, we're pleased with both the revenue performance in optical, which is where we have the highest exposure to hyperscaler today, and the order growth, which had a book to bill above one, so strong growth with strong order growth. A couple comments I'll make on this is, I think, first of all, and for those of you that know the hyperscale market, know this, one is pausing leasing talks doesn't necessarily indicate a change to their CapEx plans, because hyperscalers have multiple investment options with data centers, which include, through colocation facilities, as well as their own builds. The other thing I would say is, we should probably anticipate, if we go back and look at history, we should probably anticipate some of the similar trends that we saw in cloud in the past playing through an AI, specifically what I mean on that is, where we saw massive capital builds, we also saw short term periods of digestion around technology transitions. And of course, if you think about the GPU market today, we're in a period of technology transition. So none of this surprises me.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

And again, if I look back to our portfolio, where we have been getting the most investment and traction with hyperscale customers, I think our order book and our pipeline appear to indicate that there's not a long term shift to investment thesis that this market segment has.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Felix. And we'll take our next question from Rob Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Rob, please go ahead.

Robert Sanders
Robert Sanders
Head - Tech Hardware Research at Deutsche Bank

Yeah, hi. Just had a question about your EMS partners. I'm interested just to sort of get understand how quickly they could redomicile their production from Mexico to Southeast Asia to back to Mexico, maybe into The USA if there's enough labor. And do you have assuming that plays out that tariffs do happen, do you have the ability to pass on higher costs under the contracts you have with your customers? Thank you.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, what I'll say on this is that, again, this is a dynamic situation, it's something we're monitoring closely. Our focus is on what we can control. And obviously, we're evaluating all mitigation options. The key thing I'll emphasize in our global manufacturing network is I think we've been, you know, pretty flexible, and pretty agile in this in the past. And certainly, if you look back at the supply chain shortages that happened during COVID, and spending time with the team, I think one of the things that was clear was that we had some real strength in those areas.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

But obviously, this is something we're gonna continue to work on, and then, as we see the situation play out, we'll provide updates and clarity on the actions we're taking.

Robert Sanders
Robert Sanders
Head - Tech Hardware Research at Deutsche Bank

Got it. And just as a follow-up, could you just update on the B program? Obviously, a lot of spend expected in next year. How is the visit, but there has been some push out in the last sort of few quarters. So where are we in terms of seeing the big uptick in orders?

Robert Sanders
Robert Sanders
Head - Tech Hardware Research at Deutsche Bank

Is that in the first half of next year, or is it sooner? Thanks.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, I think we this is something we're obviously following closely. I think we've been clear that it's not something we expected impact from this year. I don't think our view has changed on that, and obviously, we think that fiber will continue to be, it's a compelling technology, we think it'll continue to be a driver. As I mentioned, as I looked at the growth segments within NI, I think fiber continues to probably be the slowest grower of the three, just because it's a more stable market, but we are anticipating continued growth in the business, albeit not at the, certainly from a TAM perspective, at the same potential that we see with optical and IP networking.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Rob. We'll take our last question today from Jacob Bluestone from BNP Paribas. Jacob, please go ahead.

Jakob Bluestone
Research Analyst at BNP Paribas

Great. Thanks for taking the question. Very quick question, just to clarify a little bit how your contracts work when it comes to tariffs. Is it you that carries the cost of any potential tariffs? Or is that automatically passed on to customers?

Jakob Bluestone
Research Analyst at BNP Paribas

I presume from your guidance, it's the former. But if you can just clarify who's contractually actually carrying the cost.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yes, I think the key thing here is we have contracts across very many different businesses, and different contracts in different businesses, as I touched on some of the dynamics between our businesses. And obviously, the businesses have varying exposure to tariffs as well. So I think there's probably not one simple answer, but again, as I mentioned, we're looking at every alternative around how we mitigate the impact of tariffs.

Jakob Bluestone
Research Analyst at BNP Paribas

Understood. Just a very quick follow-up as well. Just on the Timus contract, if you can just give any color on when does it kick in? And are there any things that we should be aware of in terms of how it might sort of if it's lower margin, higher margin initially, just so we can think about any modeling around that, just given the size? Thank you.

Justin Hotard
President & CEO at Nokia

Yeah, I appreciate that. Obviously, I think we've shared some, an overview of the T Mobile deal. It's a significant multi year extension. For me, it's also a signal of the important partnership that we have with T Mobile US, their commitment to continuing to being a leader in innovation in the market, but there's nothing else we'll say about the details of the contract.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

Thanks, Jacob, and thank you everyone for joining the call today, both Justin and Marco for their comments. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. I would like to remind you that during the call today, we have made a number of forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results currently expected. Factors that could cause such differences can be both external as well as internal operating factors.

David Mulholland
Head - Investor Relations at Nokia

We have identified such risks in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 20 F, which is available on our Investor Relations website. Thank you all for joining us today.

Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • New CEO’s focus: Justin Hautard highlighted Nokia’s strong technology portfolio and plans to optimize capital allocation while unveiling a full value-creation roadmap at a November Capital Markets Day.
  • Q1 revenue trends: Net sales fell 3% year-over-year but rose 7% on a constant-currency, portfolio-adjusted basis, led by network infrastructure (+11%, optical +15%), cloud & network services (+8%), and mobile networks stabilization (+2%).
  • Profit and cash generation: Network infrastructure operating margin expanded 190 bps and cloud & network services by 930 bps, offset by a €120 million one-time mobile networks settlement, while free cash flow topped €700 million and net cash reached €3 billion.
  • Tariff headwinds: Nokia expects a €20–30 million Q2 impact to operating profit from U.S. tariffs but maintained its full-year guidance, noting the top end of its profit range will be harder to achieve.
  • Infinera acquisition: On track to deliver €200 million of synergies, the deal enhances scale for product roadmaps and expands access to hyperscale customers, with optical networks’ book-to-bill above one.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
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