Finish telecom equipment-maker Nokia on Thursday reported a 129% YoY increase in sales at 568 million euros (about Rs 5,043 crore) from its India business, on the back of 5G rollout in the country by telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio.
In constant currency terms, the sales grew 116% from 248 million euros (about Rs 2,203 crore) in the year-ago period.
With a strong surge in sales, Nokia’s business from India during the quarter grew the highest among all its other markets, including North America, Europe, China, Asia Pacific, and others. India contributes over 5% to Nokia’s yearly revenues.
Nokia is a key network rollout partner for telecom operators in India. For 5G deployment in the country, the company has also bagged multi-year contracts from both Jio and Airtel to supply equipment from its AirScale portfolio, including base stations, high-capacity 5G antennas, network software and remote radio heads, among others.
“The strong growth in net sales in India was related to Mobile Networks as 5G deployments started to ramp in the fourth quarter (October-December). Network Infrastructure also saw strong growth driven by both optical networks and fixed networks,” the company said.
For the complete year 2022, Nokia India sales grew 15% in constant currency terms to 1,290 million euros (about Rs 11,467 crore).
Taking into consideration all markets, Nokia’s sales grew 11% YoY to 7,449 million euros (about Rs 66,224 crore) in the October-December quarter. The company’s comparable operating profit for the period rose 27% to 1,154 million euros (about Rs 10,245 crore).
Markets such as North America and China reported a fall in revenue for Nokia during the quarter. For the full year, the company’s sales grew 6% in constant currency terms and operating profit grew 12%.
“Looking forward to 2023, while we are mindful of the uncertain economic outlook, demand remains robust. We expect another year of growth and we are targeting full year net sales of between EUR 24.9 bn (billion Euros) and EUR 26.5 bn which implies between 2% and 8% growth in constant currency,” said Pekka Lundmark, president and CEO of Nokia.
“We continue to see solid demand trends in Network Infrastructure and Mobile Networks as we look ahead into 2023,” he added.