Earnings call transcript: Nokia Q3 2025 beats EPS estimates, stock surges

Nokia reported its Q3 2025 earnings, surpassing analysts’ expectations with an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.06 against the forecasted $0.0495, a surprise of 21.21%. Revenue also exceeded expectations, reaching $4.83 billion compared to the anticipated $4.64 billion. Following the announcement, Nokia’s stock rose 8.43% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor confidence in the company’s performance and outlook. According to InvestingPro data, Nokia maintains a robust financial health score of 2.67 (rated as GOOD), with notably low price volatility (Beta: 0.59) and strong financial stability (Altman Z-Score: 6.12).

Key Takeaways

• Nokia’s EPS outperformed expectations by 21.21%.
• Revenue increased by 9% year-over-year.
• Stock price surged 8.43% post-earnings announcement.
• Strategic partnerships and new product launches are driving growth.
• The company is focusing on continuous productivity improvement.

Company Performance

Nokia demonstrated strong performance in Q3 2025, with net sales growing by 9% across all business groups. Despite a decline in gross and operating margins, the company generated $429 million in free cash flow and ended the quarter with a $3 billion net cash position. Nokia’s strategic initiatives, including new product launches and partnerships, are contributing to its robust market position. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company maintains a healthy current ratio of 1.46 and offers a dividend yield of 2.34%, having raised its dividend for four consecutive years.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $4.83 billion, up 9% year-over-year.
• Earnings per share: $0.06, exceeding forecasts by 21.21%.
• Gross margin: Declined by 150 basis points year-on-year.
• Operating margin: 9%, down 220 basis points from the previous year.
• Free cash flow: $429 million.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Nokia’s actual EPS of $0.06 surpassed the forecast of $0.0495, marking a 21.21% surprise. This performance is a positive deviation from expectations, contributing to the stock’s pre-market rally. Revenue also exceeded forecasts by 4.09%, indicating strong operational execution.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Nokia’s stock price increased by 8.43%, reflecting positive investor sentiment. The stock’s performance is notable against its 52-week range, with the last close value at $4.731. This movement aligns with broader market trends favoring technology and telecommunications sectors. Based on InvestingPro’s comprehensive analysis, Nokia is currently trading near its 52-week high, with 12 additional exclusive ProTips available to subscribers. For detailed valuation insights and peer comparison analysis, access the full Nokia Pro Research Report, part of InvestingPro’s coverage of 1,400+ top stocks.

Outlook & Guidance

Nokia anticipates sequential net sales growth in Q4 2025, slightly above the historical 22% seasonality. The company is on track to achieve the midpoint of its €1.7-€2.2 billion operating profit range. Nokia is also preparing for investments in 6G standardization and will elaborate on its long-term strategy at the upcoming Capital Markets Day.

Executive Commentary

CEO Justin Hotard highlighted the accelerating demand for advanced connectivity, stating, "The AI supercycle is accelerating demand for providers of advanced and trusted connectivity." CFO Marco Wirén emphasized a shift towards continuous improvement over large-scale restructuring, saying, "We want to avoid these large-scale restructuring programs going forward."

Risks and Challenges

• Margin pressure due to declining gross and operating margins.
• Potential regulatory changes in the European market.
• Competitive pressures in the telecommunications sector.
• Macroeconomic factors affecting global supply chains.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about AI and cloud opportunities, mobile networks margin fluctuations, and the company’s 6G investment strategy. Nokia addressed these concerns, providing insights into its strategic focus and market positioning.

Full transcript - Nokia Oyj (NOKIA) Q3 2025:

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Nokia’s third quarter 2025 results call. I’m David Mulholland, Head of Nokia Investor Relations, and today with me is Justin Hotard, our President and CEO, along with Marco Wirén, our CFO. Before we get started, a quick disclaimer: during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding our future business and financial performance, and these statements are predictions that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results we currently expect. Factors that could cause such differences can be both external as well as internal operating factors. We have identified such risks in the risk factor section of our annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on our Investor Relations website.

Within today’s presentation, references to growth rates will mostly be on a constant currency and portfolio basis, and other financial items will be based on our comparable reporting. Please note that our Q3 report and the presentation that accompanies this call are published on our website. The report includes both reported and comparable financial results and a reconciliation between the two. In terms of the agenda for today, Justin will go through our key messages from the quarter, and then Marco will go through our financial performance. We’ll then move to Q&A. With that, let me hand over to Justin.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Thank you, David. Overall, we delivered a solid performance in the third quarter, in line with our expectations. We grew net sales by 9%, with all business groups growing. Order intake was again strong, particularly in Optical Networks and IP Networks, driven by AI and cloud customers. Our profitability in the quarter was as expected. Network Infrastructure gross margin improved sequentially, though it was impacted slightly by product mix. Cloud and Network Services had a strong gross margin in the quarter. Product mix impacted the gross margin of Mobile Networks, with a lower mix of software revenue. Our operating margin declined year-on-year due to a one-time benefit seen in the prior year from a loss provision reversal, without which our operating margin would have been flat. The broader demand environment remains healthy as we move into the fourth quarter.

We have seen some improvements in CSP expectations, along with the strong order intake I mentioned in AI and cloud. In fact, entering the fourth quarter, our backlog coverage is stronger than in recent years. We’re also pleased with our progress on the Infinera acquisition. We are ahead of schedule with the integration timeline and with synergy expectations. The acquired business contributed strongly to both our net sales growth and order intake growth in Q3. After a solid Q3 and continued strong order intake, we are well on track to achieve our full-year outlook. We expect a fourth quarter with net sales growing sequentially and slightly above our historical seasonality of 22%. We are currently tracking towards the midpoint of our operating profit outlook range. Let me now share a few highlights across the business from the third quarter.

For our Network Infrastructure business, the key highlight has been our progress in the AI and cloud customer segment. In Q3, this segment accounted for 6% of our group net sales. Breaking it down, it was 14% of our Network Infrastructure business, and more specifically, 29% of Optical Networks. In Optical, as mentioned, our 800G ZR/ZR+ coherent plugables became available in the quarter and shipped to our first hyperscale customer. Our pipeline in this space is growing as customer investments accelerate and data center architectures evolve. Q3 also saw us announce strategic partnerships with both N-Scale and Supermicro. With N-Scale, we are now a preferred partner for advanced networking technologies across our NI portfolio. Supermicro is adopting our SR-Linux network operating system for their 800G Ethernet switches, providing expanded footprint for our network operating system.

Finally, we secured two new design wins for our switching platform in the quarter with hyperscalers. The market is growing rapidly, and while I’m pleased with these initial signs of progress in IP Networks, clearly we still have a lot of work ahead of us. In our Fixed Networks business, we launched our new 50G PON offering. With our unique solution built on our Quillion chipset, operators can easily evolve from GPON to XGS, 25G, and 50G PON on the same fiber. Ready with encryption for the post-quantum era, Nokia’s solution also provides enterprises with the bandwidth, security, and reliability they require. Customers like Frontier Communications in the United States are already using our unique PON technology to seamlessly introduce 25G PON. Now I want to turn to our mobile businesses, starting with Cloud and Network Services.

The team has delivered strong net sales growth and operating profit growth as it continues to focus on autonomous cloud-native architectures. In Voice Core, we became the market share leader in the first half of 2025, as reported by Deloro. Approximately 70% of 5G standalone core network deployments outside China use a portion of Nokia’s 5G Core stack, and network penetration is still less than 30% for 5G standalone core. In Mobile Networks, we continue to see the market stabilize. We recently announced a deal with Vodafone and Three UK that will see us enter their new combined network in the UK as a major RAN supplier with approximately 7,000 sites. We are focused on improving the returns in the business over time, delivering for our customers, and differentiating through innovation. In Nokia Technologies, we secured several new agreements in the quarter.

The team continues to be disciplined on productivity and operating leverage. While we are now entering the heightened investment phase for 6G standardization, we continue to see stability in our annual operating profit. In Q3, we completed a strategic review of our venture fund investments. We have decided to scale down our passive venture fund investments. Over time, we will substantially reduce the capital deployed in these areas. As a result, our venture fund investments are now reported within financial income and expenses. Going forward, we will consider targeted direct minority investments in companies that help us to accelerate our strategy. An example is the investment we made in N-Scale alongside the strategic partnership that I referred to earlier.

Because of this change, we are making a technical change to our operating profit guidance, increasing it by €0.1 billion, which is related to the negative impact the venture funds had on our operating profit in the first half. However, operationally, our guidance is unchanged. After a solid Q3 and with recent order trends, we are well on track to achieve our full-year outlook for operating profit. As I mentioned before, we expect fourth quarter net sales to grow sequentially at slightly above our historical seasonality of 22%, and we are tracking towards the midpoint of our operating profit range of €1.7 to €2.2 billion. At our Capital Markets Day in New York on November 19, we will share our strategy to unlock the full potential of our portfolio and the steps we are taking to focus the company to deliver ongoing growth and operating leverage.

The AI supercycle is accelerating demand for providers of advanced and trusted connectivity. Nokia is uniquely positioned to be a leader in this market. With that, let me hand it over to Marco to discuss our financial performance.

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: Thanks, Justin, and hello from my side as well. In quarter three, we saw net sales increase by 9%, and we are pleased to see growth across all of our business groups. Gross margin for the group declined 150 basis points year on year. This was largely as we have expected, and this is because of the product mix within both Network Infrastructure and Mobile Networks. Operating margin was 9%, 220 basis points below the prior year, although this was mainly due to a one-time impact from the reversal of loss allowance for trade residuals in the prior year. Without this, the operating profit margin would have been flat year on year. We generated $429 million of free cash flow and ended the quarter with $3 billion of net cash. I would like to update you on our cost savings program, which we introduced in 2023.

We expect to get about $450 million savings in 2025. Going forward, we will focus on delivering operational leverage through continuous productivity improvement, IT simplification, digital instrumentation, and organizational efficiency, rather than using large restructuring programs. Ultimately, this means a cultural shift towards consistent cost discipline and efficiency to help us deliver our strategic goals. Turning to business groups now, starting with Network Infrastructure, which had another strong quarter with 11% growth. Optical Networks were the standout performer with 19% sales growth and continued to see strong order trends with book-to-bill well above one. IP Networks also saw strong growth in orders in the quarter, as we start to see an increased traction with AI and cloud, as Justin mentioned. IP Networks sales grew 4%, and Fixed Networks grew 8% in the quarter.

Gross margin was impacted by the product mix and declined 190 basis points, although it did increase from the level we had in quarter two. Operating margin declined because of lower gross margin, along with the increased investments in R&D and acquisition of Infinera. In the quarter, we did see a small positive contribution to operating profit from Infinera as we start to see some initial benefit from synergies along with the growth in the business. Cloud and Network Services sales grew by 13% in the quarter, as we continue to see strong demand for our cloud-based core platforms. Gross margin increased 380 basis points as we improved cost of delivery, along with the operating leverage benefit of higher sales. Operating margin also increased by 250 basis points, with some of the gross margin strength partially offset by higher R&D expenses.

Mobile Networks net sales increased by 4% year on year, driven by growth in Vietnam and Middle East & Africa. In quarter two, we said we expect quarter three gross margin to be lower than normal, reflecting a lower software contribution, and this was indeed the case. Year on year, we saw a 370 basis points decline. With respect to operating margin, although operating expenses declined, the reversal of a loss allowance in the prior year meant that operating margin declined. Without this, the operating margin would have only slightly declined, despite this being a quarter with a low software contribution in the mix. Turning now to Nokia Technologies, net sales grew by 14% in the quarter, and we signed several new deals in quarter three. Our annual net sales run rate remains at approximately €1.4 billion.

Operating expenses in quarter three saw some timing benefits and therefore will increase slightly in quarter four. We continue to expect €1.1 billion operating profit for the full year in Nokia Technologies. Now let’s look at the net sales by region. In North America, we saw strong growth in Network Infrastructure and Cloud and Network Services, while Mobile Networks declined slightly. In APAC, India sales grew in Network Infrastructure, driven by strong demand for fixed wireless, while Mobile Networks sales returned to some modest growth. Outside of the benefit we saw from Nokia Technologies, Europe was stable in quarter three. Now turning to our cash performance, we ended the quarter with a net cash position of €3 billion. Free cash flow was positive €429 million, consistent with our profit generation and well-managed working capital.

We continue to target 50% to 80% free cash flow conversion from comparable operating profit for the full year.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thank you, Justin and Marco. Before we turn to the Q&A session, you should already have received an invitation to register for our Capital Markets Day, which, as Justin mentioned, will be held in New York on the 19th of November. We hope as many of you as possible will be able to join us at the event. As usual, for the Q&A session, as a courtesy to others in the queue, could you please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up? Kayleigh, could you please give the instructions?

Conference Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. If you are also viewing the webcast, please remember to mute the audio on your computer before asking your question, as there is a 30-second delay. Please press 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing your key. To withdraw your question, yes, let’s go. I’ll now hand back to David Mulholland.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: We will take our first question today from Artem Beletsky from SEB. Artem, please go ahead.

Yes, hi, and thank you for the presentation. My question would be related to IP Networks and switching business on that front. How do you see the progress on that front in general? You have also said target three quarters ago, what comes to year 2028? Are you well tracking on it?

One second. Could you start your question again, please? We just had a technical issue on our side.

No worries. Can you hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, great. I would like to ask a question relating to IP Networks and your initiatives, what comes to data center and switching business. You mentioned that you have some new design wins during the quarter. How are you tracking against your targets for 2028? Also, should we anticipate some contribution to revenues looking at upcoming quarters? Thank you.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, so Artem, I think, as I’ve said, I’ve said in a couple of forums, but maybe just to share here, I think when we talk about a €100 million incremental investment, the reality for me is that’s a small portion of our overall capital. I don’t think you’ll see us focus on that metric going forward. What I will say about the business is I was pleased with the wins. I’m pleased on the book-to-bill in IP Networks overall. The reality is, we all know, is that we’re still a fairly small player in this space, well behind some of the market leaders. We’re at the start of a journey. The announcements we’ve made, I think, are positive. The metrics are positive. It’s much more work to be done longer term.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Did you have a quick follow-up, Artem?

Yes, absolutely. Maybe a more general question. Looking at your growth opportunities, what comes to AI and cloud? It was 6% of sales in the quarter, so increased compared to Q2. In general, looking at the next couple of years, where do you see the biggest growth opportunities, looking at different customer segments? Whether it’s like hyperscalers, enterprise, or sovereign side, where you see the biggest opportunity for you?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, I think, first of all, the biggest opportunity is clearly in the hyperscalers and the neoclouds that’s driving most of the demand. Obviously, the partnership with N-Scale is a good example of our focus in this area. We’ve made other announcements in the past. We also believe that sovereign clouds will present significant opportunity for us over time. As we’ve talked about before, we’re optimistic about the work that’s being done in the EU as well as in other regions. We think that these are all important growth segments for us. Clearly, the demand today is largely coming from the hyperscalers and some of the larger neoclouds.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Artem. We’ll take our next question from Simon Leopold from Raymond James. Simon, please go ahead.

Appreciate it. Thank you for taking the question. Nice to hear about the progress in the hyperscalers. I want to dig a little bit more deeply here in that more recently we’ve heard about an application referred to as Scale Across for optics, which I think of as basically data center interconnect on steroids. Could you talk a little bit about what this means for Nokia in particular and how you see that as an opportunity?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, sure, Simon. I think it’s something that’s been around. Obviously, Scale Up, or what’s being talked about as Scale Across, has been in networks and data centers for a long time in certain parts of the market. This isn’t a new technology, but what is happening is as we push bandwidth demands, which obviously the AI data centers are driving, it’s creating new demand for innovation in that space. I think this is where the assets we have, I think, are well positioned. It’s not a place where I can tell you we can point to it and say we’ve got material revenue today. It’s still early days.

I do think if you look at our assets here, particularly what we’re doing in indium phosphide with the fab, the ability to build optical components down on the indium phosphide silicon and innovate in packaging in these areas, we think we’ve got technology that can be relevant here. Obviously, as bandwidth demands continue in networks, both Scale Across and Scale Out, which is what we typically see in top-of-rack networking and IP switching, both of those create tremendous opportunity for us. The way I would dimensionalize the opportunity in optical is, and we’ll share more of this at CMD, is that every time you get to the next unit, if you go from the long-haul networks to the metro networks to the data center, now inside the data center, then inside the rack, each one of those has incremental opportunity at a volume level.

Of course, there’s a performance and cost delta you have to hit as well, because what we build for long-haul networks is obviously going to be significantly more expensive than what you’d have to build to fit inside of a server or inside of a rack. There’s a part of this that will require us to continue to innovate in this space. You’ll hear more about it in our discussions at CMD.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Did you have a follow-up, Simon?

Sure, thank you. I presume we’ll talk about the long-term strategy, of course, at the Capital Markets Day. I’m wondering if you could provide us a few thoughts on how Nokia’s plan is regarding 6G mobility investments. Have you started investing? Is that in the R&D today? Is it something that starts in 2026, or is it something further out in time? I’m just really focused on modeling for the moment, because I expect we’ll hear some more at the Capital Markets Day next month. Thank you.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: On technology standardization, which is obviously very important and relevant for tech, that work has already started and the investment is ongoing. As I touched on in my comments, we’re going to go through a bit of an investment. You go through a bit of an investment cycle in that space. That ramp is happening. We obviously reiterated confidence on the ongoing profit outlook for Nokia Technologies as a part of that. I think that gives you some indication from a modeling standpoint. For MN, we’ve talked about this publicly. We’re doing work early on 6G, I would say pre-standard 6G radio technology. There’s more work here. The thing for me in this space is, and Simon and I have talked about this a little bit in comments as well, I think there’s a lot of focus on, for obvious reasons, on the G transition, the 3G, 4G, 5G, 6G.

I actually think what’s more important for us is what we’ve done in Cloud and Network Services, which is the pivot to a cloud-native core. Then you look at the results and the performance on share capture and revenue growth. I think that’s a good indicator for how we see the we’re going to start to think about the opportunity in RAN, which is, as we go into AI and in MN, yes, there’s going to be a new generation of radios in terms of, hopefully, frequencies with spectrum approvals and, of course, 6G capabilities in terms of spectral efficiency. There’s a lot more to do in terms of radio capabilities and features. This is why we announced things like the AI RAN Alliance previously. It’s where we see opportunity with our work in Cloud RAN, for example. I think that’s where we’ll continue to invest.

What we’ll unpack for you is that these are things that we need to focus on and invest and innovate and, of course, continue to work closely with customers. We’ll unpack that for you at CMD as well as how we’re approaching that. I wouldn’t assume that we haven’t. It’s a binary thing where we haven’t started. It’s a part of ongoing investment.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Simon. We’ll take our next question from Alex Deval from Goldman Sachs. Alex, please go ahead.

Yes, thank you so much for the question. Firstly, just dovetailing off the last question, I’m very much looking forward to hearing more about the long-term tech strategy on wireless. Just in the short term, you talked about a measure of stabilization there. I wondered if you could give a bit more color as to the extent to which that’s driven by the RAN market in your most important geographies versus progress you’ve made on your product. Secondly, it was interesting to hear in your prepared remarks about how you will focus on cost control by ongoing steps like digitalization rather than large restructuring programs. I wondered if at this point you could talk a bit more about what motivates that shift and the benefits this brings. Many thanks.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Maybe we start with the second part, Marco. You want to talk about that?

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: Yeah, absolutely. When it comes to cost savings, just like I mentioned in my introduction as well, operational leverage is extremely important for us. Continuous improvement is something that we want to get in our genes, that every entity basically continuously finds ways how can we continuously improve and do things more efficiently. Of course, here comes quite naturally in the new technologies, utilizing AI and other digitalization opportunities that you can find. That’s why IT simplification is extremely important in this and securing that we can actually get the benefit out of those different installations of AI that we have and continuously work on the process simplification and find ways how we can make the processes more efficient continuously. It’s not a one-off action. It’s something that you have to do continuously.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, and then in terms of the market outlook, first of all, I think you’re pretty clear from what we’ve been saying that if you think about the AI and cloud market growing rapidly, the CSP market broadly has been quite stable. As we think about that, when I look at our results, I think stabilizing in MN in terms of our performance being predictable, there’s always puts and takes. There’s going to be ups and downs in the quarter and variance based on a given customer’s volume in one quarter. We’ll see a little bit of that. When you look at the longer-term trends, I think we’re feeling better about a stabilizing environment. Then on Cloud and Network Services, as I touched on, we believe we’re growing above market rates at this point.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Alex. We’ll take our next question from Sami Sarkemis from Danske Bank. Sami, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Could you please elaborate on the factors that drove the positive surprise in the third quarter, as you had anticipated similar sales and margins as in Q2? When we think about Q4, you also mentioned a strong order book, but do you have still uncertainties related to timing of deliveries as you chose not to narrow the guidance range down?

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: Yeah, thank you, Sami. If you look at gross margin development and in different businesses, you can see that we had a very good development in Cloud and Network Services. Here, as you understand, this business has been quite frequently so that you get a big part of the profits in quarter four. This year, we have been working actively to try to actually balance that distribution of profits more equally between the different quarters. At the same time, you see also that we have increased our gross margins. There are a few reasons for this. One is, of course, that we’ve seen good traction on 5G standalone core implementations, where we have been very successful gaining market share. We’ve been working quite a long time in the CNS as well to clean up the portfolio. This, of course, is giving results as well.

The third point I would say is that also in our core business, CNS has been working heavily to take cost out and make things more efficiently, and by that, improving the margin levels.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Did you have a follow-up, Sami?

Maybe a detailed question on the 6% exposure to AI and cloud in the third quarter. I think you mentioned 5% hyperscaler exposure after Q2. These are different metrics, right?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: These are comparable, Sami. Think of the 5% as Q3, 6% as Q3.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Sami. We’ll take our next question from Richard Kramer from Arete. Richard, please go ahead.

Thanks. Justin, when we look at your competitors into the various NI divisions, many of them are point solutions in one or another of the fields of routing, optics, or fixed. In the current hyperscaler and tech, are these areas being kept separate, or do you think that the end-to-end promise we heard about so much from both of the prior CEOs at Nokia is finally being realized, at least within NI?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: I think a couple of things on this, Richard. First of all, for me, clearly fixed access is its own business. The technology and innovation there is coming out of a few markets. The largest one for us, obviously, is in the U.S., but there are other markets where we’re seeing technology and innovation opportunities. I think that’s almost its own trend. Obviously, I shared the discussion around the 50G PON. This capability that we have to allow you to add new technologies in line in your terminals, we think is a true differentiator. We hear that from customers. The customers using it believe it gives them value because they don’t have to invest in a complete infrastructure upgrade to overhaul. The key message there is we’re competing on the technology’s merits itself.

I think if you look at IP switching and certainly in optical networking, I would say the same. We’ve got to win on the technical merits themselves. We’ve got very capable customers across our portfolio, AI and cloud, as well as CSPs that want to buy best-of-breed technologies and enable their solutions and execute on their strategies and deliver value to their customers. Our focus has to be on doing the things that add value to them. Where I think there’s leverage and synergy for us is being able to see what’s happening across these markets and bring greater scale and innovation to them. For me, the term isn’t end-to-end. You’ve always got to have best-of-breed products, best-of-breed technology. Then you’ve got to be able to leverage the ecosystem so that, obviously, you’re better together.

It’s not something that we do that assume we could have a deficiency in one area. That’s certainly not how we think about it.

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: Building on what Justin said, the compatibility is very important. That’s a benefit that we can get compared to competition, which only go with one product. When we come with several products and they are best-of-breed and customers buy those, those actually work well together.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Did you have a follow-up, Richard?

Quick one from Marco. We saw a reduction in your forecast restructuring cash outflows from $450 million to $350 million and an increase of $50 million in gross cost savings. Is this Nokia finally transitioning from what’s been a decade-long restructuring to maybe being able to focus more beyond 2026 on just growth?

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: I would say that the important thing is that we want to avoid these large-scale restructuring programs going forward and more get this into our DNA as continuous improvement and customer focus, and secure that we continuously find ways how we can take out costs in our fixed cost basis and our operations and utilize all the digitalization opportunities that could bring instead of doing these large-scale cost-cutting programs. That’s our focus going forward.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Richard. We’ll take our next question from Felix Henriksen from Nordea. Felix, please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Good to see Infinera turning positive on operating profit contribution. I wanted to ask about that, that in light of the progress that you’ve made on integration, do you see the $200 million in run rate operating profit synergies for 2027 as conservative? Are these savings something that you will have to reinvest in the growth in the optical business, kind of what you’re doing in the IP side of things? Thanks.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, multiple questions in there. Let me sort of answer. First of all, yeah, we’ll provide a full update at CMD on our view. I would say certainly well on track on our commitments, as we’ve talked about on the cost synergies, clearly with the growth that we’re seeing ahead of our expectations on top-line synergies. I think in terms of investment, what I would say is we’ll talk more about that. We’ll talk more about that in CMD. We’re going to be very disciplined in capital allocation. Obviously, you saw one dimension of that with our decision on venture funds this quarter. This is a place where, if we see the opportunity to accelerate or enhance returns, we’ll make continued investments. Right now, I think, again, pleased to be on track on the cost synergies and thrilled to be running ahead of expectations on revenue.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Felix. We’ll take our next question from Rob Saunders from Deutsche Bank. Rob, please go ahead.

Hi. I just had a question on Mobile Networks. There’s some speculation that the EU will apply pressure on some member countries to accelerate their swap out of Chinese vendors. I’m just interested in that and how you think about that, given your recent public statements. I just want to talk a bit about OpEx. How are you thinking about OpEx into next year, given you clearly wanted to invest more in these growth areas? Thanks.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, so Rob, thanks for that. First of all, obviously, we would love to see regulations in the EU that create the market opportunity you’re talking about. I think it’s important from a high-risk vendor standpoint. It’s also important just from a sovereignty perspective in terms of having the two largest providers of networks in the West being European. I think that’s important. We’re optimistic that we would be able to obviously grow and capture some portion of that market if it was available. Number two, in terms of the second OpEx question, it was really just around operating leverage. I think my push is really specific on this. I want to see us drive operating leverage, something Marco touched on in his comments.

The reason for that is because I want to be able to maximize returns in terms of capturing value from the business we have and then deploy capital in areas where we think we can win, things like incremental R&D if there’s demand in the market, things like increasing factory capacity in optics to the extent that we see opportunities there. It’s important. We talk a lot about the fabrication facilities. These are far smaller than you think of a fabrication facility in silicon, and actually, the investment sizes are much smaller. We’ll unpack more of that for you at CMD. Those are the kinds of things I want to be able to deploy capital into, obviously incremental sales coverage where we’re seeing growth in AI. I would think of all of this as driving enhanced returns, not something that’s going to dilute our performance. That’s key.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Rob. We’ll take our next question from Andrei Pantioukhov from Citi. Andrei, please go ahead.

Thank you, David. Morning all. I just had one on gross profitability, please, both, I suppose, on the positive side in what you’ve seen in CNS and then perhaps on the more negative side with Mobile Networks. We’re seeing quite a lot of volatility quarter to quarter. CNS clearly driven nicely in 3Q by the mix towards 5G Core. Is that mix sustainable? A high 40% gross margin for CNS is what we should be anticipating, perhaps with some quarterly fluctuation, but perhaps not to the extent that we’ve been seeing. Can you sustain gross margins around that level? Similarly, on the other side with Mobile, 41% in the prior quarter, down to 35% in the current quarter. I understand, again, software mix has changed, but quite dramatic moves. What do you think is sort of a more normalized level, given the revenue run rate that you’re at in Mobile?

What’s the more normalized level of gross margins for MN at this point? Thank you.

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: Yeah, thank you. If I start with the Mobile Networks side, there is variability, and that’s why we usually say that Mobile Networks would be better to look at on an annual basis or four quarters because you have always some product mix fluctuations. The level of software has a big impact on gross margin, and that you see also between quarter two and quarter three, which is why we see this fluctuation between those quarters where you have more software in quarter two and less in quarter three. I would say that if you look on a longer-term or annual basis, then you can see the levels of Mobile Networks gross margins and get an understanding of where it is and how we are tracking compared to the previous year.

When it comes to CNS, I mentioned earlier already a few points there that are about the reasons for the improved gross margins. We definitely believe that it is sustainable. This has been a multi-year journey to get the improvements here, cleaning up the portfolio, focus on cost out on the different products that we have. We also see the market support here. It took a while before the 5G Core stack started to get traction, actually, from our customer side on CSP side. Now we’ve seen in the past 18 months that it’s actually been quite positive, and we have momentum there. Thanks to our cloud-based solution that we have, we have actually gained market share and been able to improve our market position.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Andrei. We’ll take our next question from Daniel Juerberg from Handelsbanken. Daniel, please go ahead.

Thank you, and congrats to strong numbers. I actually would like to continue on that question I had to say more or less. On the Mobile Networks, the software upgrades on standalone seem not to be in tandem, at least with the CNS on the 5G Core. Should we expect to have a little bit of an upgrade in the baseband software, radio unit software, or ahead of us on the back of the 5G standalone core now being lit on? Thanks.

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: I can start. Justin, if you have anything you can add as well. What usually happens in the new generation is that you first install the hardware, baseband, and radios. When you see that the demand increases on the customer side, you actually implement the core as well when you see that you need those features that the new generation can offer. This is exactly the same example here in 5G. In the beginning, the 4G core was still functional quite well on the early 5G installations. Now, when there’s more opportunities to slice and dice the network, you need a 5G standalone core to be able to capture those opportunities and offer those services to a customer base.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, I would just add a couple of things. I think we want to make sure we’re clear on the Q2 to Q3 margin impact in Mobile Networks is timing because of how we release software in this portfolio, which is we release an upgrade. We then recognize the revenue of those upgrades as they get deployed into customers. Largely, customers take the release, and that’s the timing dimension between Q2 and Q3. Also realize that the Mobile Networks baseband software, which is the majority of the software revenue we have in Mobile Networks today, is still largely in a, what I would call, a more legacy appliance model. Cloud and Network Services or our core networks have moved to a cloud model, and that means we have more subscription-based pricing. We have more rateable deployment.

That means customers will be paying on a recurring revenue basis for ongoing support and service. Whether it’s subscription-based models there, it’s a very different business model in that dynamic. Obviously, we think that’s the long-term direction of travel in mobile, but that’s not where the market is today. Today, our cloud RAN business is fairly small.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Did you have a quick follow-up, Daniel?

Yes, please. Just a question on your work. Already in Q2, you commented to unify corporate functions, simplify work, etc., and change culture a bit to unlock the operating leverage. You’ve seen quite large changes, especially when you’re in the CTO office. The question is on the Nokia Bell Labs organization. Should we expect this to be more focusing on AI data center than on the Mobile Networks and Radio Access Networks ahead, given the departure of Nishant Batra?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, look, I think for me, a couple of things. First of all, I talked about functional excellence, which was the purpose around the corporate functions. I think having a leader that is the Chief Technology and AI Officer that’s focused on technology and AI, key areas of our platforms, AI, security, cloud, all of those elements that we’re touching on or talking around in this call today is very important. Having someone who’s excellent in that, but also understands our fixed network infrastructure business and mobile infrastructure. If you look at Pallavi’s background, she has a career where she’s done both across Juniper, HPE, and then also at Intel. The other thing was focused around corporate development. That was not just out of the strategy organization, but also bringing together some of the corporate development folks we had within the business groups and also within the finance organization.

For me, this is all about functional excellence and aligning accountability and having cleaner and simple functions. Obviously, we also moved the digital office, so the IT organization, into finance, which really ties back to the focus that Marco touched on in his comments around driving ongoing improvement, ongoing productivity, and enabling that through digitization, through AI, through simplification around processes. Obviously, IT is an important part of how you both simplify and standardize and realize those benefits. We felt like that was a natural alignment. I think that’s the way I would think about it. I think it’s important. We have two compelling assets in both our Network Infrastructure business and our mobile portfolios.

We need a CTO that can look across all of that and also make sure that we’re thinking about the right long-term investments in Nokia Bell Labs, whether it’s from a research or from a nearer-term innovation standpoint.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Daniel. We’ll take our next question from Emil Eminen from DNB Carnegie. Emil, please go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, Nokia.

Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to maybe ask a little bit on the demand in Europe in general. On the revenue decline on some parts in Network Infrastructure and also in Mobile Networks in Europe, do you see that this is more, let’s say, structural, or would you say that this is temporary in the way that Europe is just not investing right now? How do you see this developing going forward?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, I think in terms of CSPs, I think that I would say telcos, it’s stabilizing demand. We think that’s a good thing. Obviously, we talked about the potential of upside in Europe over time if there’s regulation that addresses high-risk vendor status. I think overall, that feels pretty good. We’re excited about the potential of AI and data center business in Europe. We’re certainly excited about the opportunity, the partnership we have with N-Scale, and the opportunity for other companies to invest in Europe. We like the trends of what we’re seeing. The reality is the majority of the investment today is happening in the U.S. As you look at our revenues and you look at our profile, the demand is coming from the U.S. I think that’s important. That’s how I would net it out.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Did you have a quick follow-up, Daniel?

Yeah, maybe we could touch on the private wireless side. The customer numbers grow nicely, but you haven’t really discussed it at all in terms of revenue or anything. Could you say how is that part of the business going?

Marco Wirén, CFO, Nokia: Yeah, just like you said, we’ve seen a nice increase in the number of customers. Remember, we are still in a very early phase of this journey. Even if growth rates are pretty good, it will take some time before this will be a meaningful business. It’s worth focusing more about that.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, I would just add, I think if you look at where we are today, I think Marco summarized it well. I would tell you that where I see our biggest opportunity is in focused vertical market use cases. There’s some examples in railways, for example, and utilities is the other, right? If you look at those, those are the places where we’ve got opportunity. This goes back to that message of focus.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Emil. Our next question from Sebastian Stabovitz from Caplo Cheval. Sebastian, please go ahead.

Yeah, hi everyone. Thanks for taking my question. Coming back to Mobile Networks, your business is going back to moderate organic growth in the third quarter, but you remain close to break-even results these days. How do you plan to return to more decent margins in the coming years? Maybe not double-digit, but maybe high single-digit? Is it more cost-cutting? Is it more to support your revenue with more growth opportunity? The second question is also linked to mobile. We have heard some comments that the Chinese government could be looking to push the network vendors in Europe outside the Chinese market. Is this something that you already see in your order intake in China, or is this not something that you see already in your business? Thank you.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I addressed this a little bit in my comments. I mean, I think on Mobile Networks, we’re absolutely, you know, one of my priorities right now is on improving the returns. I think we do that in a couple of ways. Continued tight focus and tight engagement with customers. It ties a little bit to the second question you asked, which I’ll address in a minute. Tight focused engagement with customers, particularly those customers that want to co-innovate and collaborate with us. I think differentiation for us longer term comes through innovation and technology leadership. That was historically where the market was. I would say that obviously, if you go back five years, the company’s business was in dire straits because we weren’t in that case. We’ve now stabilized the portfolio.

As an industry, and I think certainly as a player in this industry, we need to continue to innovate. That’s as much of a preview as I’ll give you to CMD, but I’d encourage you to attend. I think absolutely that’s the line of where we’re headed. In terms of China, this is one of the places where we’re largely not exposed. The revenue in China has come down massively over the last few years. The reality is it’s a fraction of our revenue today, and our market share is fractional in Mobile Networks in China. It’s not a core market for us. The communications from the government, obviously, we follow those closely. We respect and support their decisions. The reality for us is we’re going to focus on markets where we believe there’s significant opportunity and customers where we believe we can collaborate and innovate.

I think there’s more opportunity ahead for us.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Sebastian. We’ll take our last question from Didier Schimama from Bank of America. Didier, please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning. Thanks, David, and thanks for taking my question. It’s a question for Justin, really. You’ve been in the job now for a few months. I just wondered if you could share your thoughts about the direction of the business strategically, especially when it comes to the Mobile Networks, the core activities, and also IPR, which are vastly different, I guess, from your day-to-day activities, which presumably are focused on getting those AI and cloud contracts. That was my first question, and I’ve got a quick follow-up. Thank you.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Sure. Didier, look, I think probably nothing I haven’t shared in my comments. I think we have two businesses, Network Infrastructure and Mobile Networks, in the portfolio. Obviously, if you look at the comps, there are four major providers of mobile infrastructure. They all have three things: they have core networks, they have radio networks, which is what we call MN, and they have IP licensing, which is what we call tech. I think we’ve got a pretty clear, it’s pretty clear you need the full portfolio. If you look at the players that have not had the full portfolio, they’ve all struggled to innovate or sustain a foothold. For me, that’s number one. In terms of the difference, as I’ve said before, I think connectivity is going to be an area where performant, reliable, and trusted providers are going to be very valuable.

The reality is we have a portfolio that plays across all of those core elements of connectivity. What we’re seeing today with AI, and I think the thing that candidly we weren’t capturing as historical Nokia prior to the Infinera acquisition as much as we could have, was the fact that in our Optical and IP Networks businesses, the market, the technology investment, or the technology leadership had shifted to cloud and now AI and cloud. Now we’re starting to capture some of that. Like I said, I’m pleased with the progress there. I think you’re going to see those same trends happen and roll into mobile over time. Ultimately, if you think about some of the compelling uses of AI—autonomous vehicles, robotics, smart glasses, virtual reality, augmented reality—they all need mobile connectivity. I think that will be favorable.

I don’t know if the answer, I don’t think the answer is going to be doing the same thing we’ve always done. I think we have to continue to innovate. That’s why I like what we’ve done in Cloud and Network Services with setting up an autonomous cloud-native core stack. I think there’s more opportunity for us ahead in Mobile Networks. Again, it’s going to require the things I talked about: focus, collaboration, and co-innovation with customers, and an emphasis on best-of-breed technology and strong partnerships.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: You had a quick follow-up, Didier?

Yeah, completely unrelated on the Nokia technology side. I mean, Nokia sold their phone business to Microsoft, what, 10 years ago or so. I just wondered, how is the innovation pipeline in the IPR business for the non-standard essential patents? Is there a risk of a cliff at some point as you’re not in the phone business, or are you confident that you can continue to monetize the SEPs and non-SEPs, at least at the current level?

Justin Hotard, President and CEO, Nokia: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think this is a good question. Just back to the comment I just made. Again, every player of scale in mobile infrastructure has a strong IP business, what we call tech. With the changes, I didn’t touch on this in my earlier comments, but with the changes we made in the CTO office, we’ve also now really tightly aligned the standards team into tech. We see, one, we see very good, stable revenue in the business. We’ve said already we’re starting to invest in 6G monetization. That’s important for us. We also see other emerging revenue streams in other segments. I think the business is very healthy. The team’s doing an excellent job.

They’re also doing, I think, probably the best job of any of the businesses right now in pushing on operating leverage so that they can continue to deliver the performance they need to. You’ll hear a little more about that in CMD. That’s the last plug I’ll make for CMD. We’ll talk about some of that as well there.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations, Nokia: Thanks, Didier. Thanks, Justin and Marco, for the comments. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. I would like to remind you that during the call today, we have made a number of forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results currently expected. Factors that could cause such differences can be both external as well as internal operating factors. We have identified such risks in the risk factor section of our annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on our Investor Relations website. Thank you for joining us.

Conference Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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