Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Pekka Lundmark: Okay. I mean different trends in the core network business. Obviously, the 5G stand-alone is now the name of the game because you need 5G stand-alone in terms of getting the full benefits of 5G. So there is going to be a lot of investment in 5G core and operators will be implementing some critically important services like slicing which require investments in the 5G core. That is also a market that has been through a lot of changes, and there are different parts of the core, and they are a little bit different stages of development. But overall, when we talk about the core network, it is the key part of CNS. In our case, it’s highly profitable, and it is something that we are investing significant amounts of money and the highlight of probably of what I talked about in the deep dive, also is really that we are not only making that core network software that we have cloud native, but we have started to offer it as a service as well, which I believe will be really interesting for Enterprise customers and for smaller operators and then gradually expanding to larger operators.

So it is an interesting market. Obviously, that business is much smaller compared to the radio network part. But strategically, it is an important part of the portfolio.

David Mulholland: Thank you, Sebastien. We’ll take our next question from Rob Sanders from Deutsche Bank. Rob, please go ahead.

Rob Sanders: Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just had a question on India. It looks like it’s about perhaps more than 10% of your Mobile Networks business now. I just wanted to ask about the peak because Ericsson is saying that the peak for 5G in India will be in the second half of this year. I just wanted to check if you share that view or do you think it will continue to grow from the second half into 2024? Thanks.

Pekka Lundmark: I mean the investments obviously will continue well into 2024. And then, of course, like in 4G, I mean, there will be a certain peak when operators are really, really scrambling to get coverage as fast as possible. Most likely then after that, there will be some kind of a leveling off and then it becomes a steady business where you have gradually an opportunity to improve margins, which is exactly how 4G also went. Look, without revealing what our customers have told us specifically, and it’s a highly competitive situation in India right now, I’m not going to speculate when exactly the peak will be. But it is absolutely true that there is going to be a very quick ramp-up. And of course, on that level, the investments cannot continue for many years.

David Mulholland: Thank you, Rob. We’ll take our last question from Artem Beletski from SEB. Artem, please go ahead.

Artem Beletski: Yes. Hi and thank you for taking my question as well. So I would like to ask about network infrastructure and basically growth outlook for this year within different subsegments. So where do you see the best momentum currently? And whether do you expect also basically four businesses to grow this year in constant currencies?

Pekka Lundmark: Yes, Artem, we do see growth opportunities in all four businesses this year. We expect the overall market to grow this year, and we see opportunities for taking market share through the levers that I discussed in the deep dive. So we continue to have a positive look on the prospects of that business.