Nokia reports a double-digit decline in revenue from January to March as the market for 5G technology remains poor

Nokia, a telecom equipment manufacturer with headquarters in Finland, said that its India earnings dropped 69% year over year to 265 million euros (~2,360.09 cr) from net sales of 853 million euros in the same period last year.

The business blamed the drop in earnings in its first-quarter results, which were released on Thursday, on the slow pace at which Indian telecom carriers are investing in 5G networks.

“India’s net sales decreased, which was expected given the region’s adoption of 5G following large installations in the previous quarter of the year. Greater China and the rest of APAC saw declines as well, according to Nokia’s quarterly results.

Since October 2022, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have begun rolling out 5G networks throughout the nation. These days, both telecoms say they have coverage for the whole nation. In fact, India’s 5G deployment has been dubbed the quickest in the world by its minister of electronics and information technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, who also claimed that the country had more 5G coverage than the US and Europe put together. Vodafone Idea (VIL), the third-largest telecom service provider in India, has not yet begun rolling out commercial 5G in the nation.

Low expenditure in North America and India, according to Nokia, had an effect on mobile networks and resulted in a 37% fall in net sales in Q1 in constant currency. The business said that, in light of the quick 5G rollout seen in the first half of 2023, a slower rate of expenditure in India was expected. However, the company’s projections for India for the whole year are unaltered.

“On a global scale, we anticipate that Q1 will signal the activity-driven low point in demand, which will gradually rebound during the rest of 2024 in line with more typical seasonality. We observed significant growth in gross,” the report says. Another manufacturer of telecom gear, Ericsson, reported a 38% decline in net sales from 13.9 billion SEK in Q1 2023 to 8.6 billion SEK in Q1 2024 in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India.