Nokia, the Finnish telecom firm saw its shares slide on Thursday after the company reported a 32% drop in Q2 operating profit on the back of weak demand for its 5G equipment. But as per Nokia, sales should recover towards the end of 2024 with the help of orders from North America.
Earlier in the day, Nokia said its Q2 comparable operating profit declined to 423 million euros ($462 million), down by nearly a third from the 619 million euros posted in the same period of last year.
Nokia weak net sales
Citing “ongoing market weakness,” the company said net sales also eased by 18% to 4.47 billion euros – the lowest level achieved since the Q4 of 2015, according to LSEG data.
“The most significant impact was the challenging year-ago comparison period which saw the peak of India’s rapid 5G deployment with India accounting for three quarters of the decline,” Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark said in the earnings release.
The landscape likewise remains “challenging as operators continue to be cautious” in the mobile networks sector, he warned.
Nokia financial outlook
As per Nokia, the financial outlook for it shows a “stabilizing” industry environment and a “significant acceleration in net sales growth in the second half” of the year, based on the order intake experienced in recent quarter.
“While the dynamic is improving, the net sales recovery is happening somewhat later than we previously expected, impacting our business group net sales assumptions for 2024,” Lundmark said. “Despite this, we remain solidly on track to achieve our full year outlook supported by our quick action on cost.”
The firm continues to target a performance toward or just under the mid-point of its comparable operating profit guidance of 2.3 billion to 2.9 billion euros for the full year.
Major upset for Nokia
Nokia suffered a huge blow from the loss of a major North American contract late last year, when U.S. telecoms juggernaut AT&T selected Ericsson as a supplier to build a telecom network that uses only so-called ORAN technology.
Nokia’s cost cutting measures
The Finnish firm and Swedish rival Ericsson have embarked on steep cost-cutting programs amid an industry-wide battle against a slowing economy and infrastructure spending trims from mobile operators. Back in October, Nokia announced it would eliminate up to 14,000 jobs following a plunge in third-quarter earnings, with an eye to lower its gross costs by between 800 million and 1.2 billion euros by 2026.
The firm on Thursday said it had made “significant progress” on its cost savings program and actioned measures aimed to reduce costs by 400 million euros to date.
Nokia stock update
Nokia’s Helsinki-listed shares tumbled down by 8% at 9 a.m. London time, shortly after the market open.
