Telecom gear maker Nokia on Thursday reported a 30% quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) decline in revenue from its India operations to €265 million (around Rs 2,359 crore) for the January-March quarter, according to the company’s earnings. On a year-on-year basis, the sales fell 69% from 853 million euros (Rs 7,560 crore) in the corresponding period last year.
A weakness in sales for Nokia has come at a time when telecom operators, Jio and Airtel, have mostly covered rollout of 5G services pan-India and their investment levels have normalised.
The trend in earnings performance for Nokia is similar to its peer Ericsson in India. The latter also reported a 11% q-o-q decline in revenue from its India operations to Rs 4,046 crore in January-March quarter. On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, Ericsson’s sales from India fell by 22%.
“A slower pace of spending in India was anticipated following the rapid 5G deployment seen in H1 of 2023 and our expectations for India for the full year remain unchanged,” said Pekka Lundmark, president and CEO of Nokia, in the earnings release.
“Globally, we expect Q1 (January-March) to mark the low point in demand with activity then progressively picking up through the remainder of 2024 consistent with more normal seasonality,” Lundmark added.
Ericsson on the other hand expects a further decline in the radio access network (RAN) market, “at least through the end of this year, as customers remain cautious with their investments and the pace of investment in India continues to normalise,” Börje Ekholm, president and CEO, had said in the earnings statement.
Globally, Nokia’s net sales fell 20% y-o-y to € 4.6 billion (around Rs 40,960 crore). The company’s net profit rose 46% y-o-y to € 501 million (Rs 4,461 crore) owing to fall in expenses.
Nokia said the environment is still challenging but order trends continue to improve year-on-year, particularly in Network Infrastructure.
