Demand for 5G helped propel Nokia in the second quarter, and it’s only at the beginning of the 5G life cycle globally.
Nokia reported an 11% increase in second-quarter sales to about $6 billion compared with a year earlier.
Net sales for the network infrastructure group were up 12% on a constant currency basis, the company said.
In North America, Nokia reported double-digit growth.
The big question here is: Can it win back market share at Verizon? It was widely reported in 2020 that Nokia lost out when Verizon signed a major network deal with Samsung worth $6.65 billion; that deal runs through 2025.
Nokia President and CEO Pekka Lundmark was asked about Verizon during Thursday’s second-quarter earnings conference call with analysts, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.
Without naming Verizon, he said Nokia believes it has a fully competitive 5G product overall. He noted Ookla’s recent measurements of different carriers and the competitiveness of one of Nokia’s largest customers, T-Mobile, in particular.
“When it comes to specific customers and the market shares of win backs, as I said on a general level, of course, our goal is to maximize our market share,” he said. “And if we have lost market share somewhere, our goal is to win it back. But if those things would happen, that’s something that I do not want to speculate on.”
Elsewhere, there’s plenty of room for growth from 5G. For example, Lundmark cited India as one of the most important areas where 5G hasn’t even really started yet. Latin America is another example where it’s just now starting, he said.
“We do believe that we are still early in the 5G cycle,” he said. The penetration of 5G sites is only 15% outside of China in the world. Again, this does not mean that we would be immune to any macroeconomic cycles. Of course, they do play a role, but all we can comment is what we are seeing today.”
Lunkmark also said Nokia has doubled down on its investments in private wireless since the start of this year, and that’s showing results. The company added 35 new customers in private wireless during the second quarter; it now has 485 customers in this space.