Adapting to the needs of an ever-changing world for over 155 years, Nokia has transformed into a business-to-business (B2B) technology innovation leader, delivering pioneering networks that sense, think, and act by leveraging its mobile, fixed, and cloud network portfolio, alongside its extensive intellectual property (IP) and long-term research.
Financial and Operational Overview
With challenging market conditions in the first half of 2024, Nokia’s full-year net sales have declined, but the vendor delivered a strong finish, improving net sales and achieving a full-year operating profit of EUR 2 billion.
“This was a year of good strategic execution in a volatile market to achieve our full-year guidance while pursuing growth opportunities in our focus areas of data centers, private wireless, and industrial edge and defense,” stated Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO of Nokia.
Notably, by the end of 2024, Nokia recorded 123 5G standalone (5G SA) core customers, 850 private wireless customers and 48 network application programming interface (API) partners, while adding 18,000 base station sites.
Thanks to favorable market trends and the determination of the Nokia team, the company ended 2024 with excellent deal momentum, gaining shares in many key markets and winning entirely new communication service provider (CSP) and enterprise customers. According to CSPs, the estimated total addressable market (TAM), excluding Russia and Belarus, was EUR 86 billion.
Major developments include a strategic deal with AT&T to deploy next-generation fiber broadband in the US; large-scale commercial O-RAN rollout with Deutsche Telekom in Germany; the acquisition of optical networking supplier, Infinera, following the divestment of its submarine networks business; and the acquisition of tactical communications specialist, Fenix Group.
In line with this, 2024 was hailed “a year of innovation” in the cloud and network services business group at Nokia, with artificial intelligence (AI) and the telco cloud playing a big part in its innovation journey.
Despite volatile net sales, the company delivered a strong cash performance throughout 2024, ending with full-year free cash flow (FCF) of EUR 2 billion.
Nokia’s Journey in 2024
In its 2024 annual report, Nokia highlighted its three distinctive strengths that enable customers to realize the full potential of the digital realm.
- Trusted Performance Across All Network Domains: Nokia is delivering resilient, superior performance across all critical parts of the network, built on cutting-edge innovations and high standards of security, sustainability, and ethics.
“Network Infrastructure is supporting the world’s growing demand for connectivity, capacity, security and efficiency,” pointed out Federico Guillén, President, Network Infrastructure. Among its innovations in 2024 is the Event-Driven Automation platform: the most modern data center platform in the industry, built for the AI era.
- Networks as Platforms for Automation and Monetization: Nokia is enabling customers to innovate and unlock new value by connecting ecosystems of applications and services to next-generation networks that are AI-driven, autonomous, and programmable.
Nokia’s Network as Code platform and developer portal underscore Nokia’s strategic commitment to leveraging the broader B2B digitalization ecosystem. Commenting on the acquisition of Rapid’s technology assets in November 2024, Raghav Sahgal, President of Cloud and Network Services, stated, “Operators need a bridge to connect to thousands of developers to drive enterprise and consumer value creation and monetize their networks.”
- Truly Open Network Architectures: Nokia is facilitating the implementation of open architectures that can seamlessly integrate into any customer or partner’s ecosystem. In collaboration with leading technology partners such as Dell Technologies, Nokia’s NextGen Lab, located in Saudi Arabia, will demonstrate Open RAN’s capabilities and explore the possibility of flexible and interoperable networks to meet the demands of an increasingly connected society.
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Among Nokia’s innovation highlights are its research and development (R&D) investment since 2000, amounting to over EUR 150 billion, and the 7,000+ patent families declared as essential to the 5G standard. The focus for the Nokia Technology Vision in 2024 was “Digital Acceleration Toward the Quantum Era,” which describes the increasing intersection of the digital, physical, and human worlds with a futuristic smart world that feels more human.
Moreover, in 2024, Nokia made the world’s first immersive voice and audio call over a cellular network using a codec which enables 3D spatial sound in real-time.
Middle East Focus
Nokia’s Mobile Broadband Index Report 2024 highlighted the continued rapid adoption of 5G technology in the MEA region, projecting that by 2029, 5G subscriptions will reach 519 million, with 48% of total data traffic expected to be driven by 5G. Mikko Lavanti, SVP for Mobile Networks, MEA at Nokia, said, “Nokia’s services empower CSPs to unlock the full potential of their networks, delivering advanced connectivity solutions that are critical for the region’s development.”
Mikko Lavanti’s keynote at the 18th edition of the Telecom Review Leaders’ Summit offered a compelling narrative of innovation, resilience, and human-centric leadership shaping the wireless future of the Middle East and Africa (MEA).
Nokia has also successfully completed the UAE’s first live transport slicing deployment with du, allowing the service provider to operate a variety of network services that cater to different needs while remaining within the existing network infrastructure. Apart from this, Nokia is supporting du’s 5G-Advanced network expansion.
Through a strategic collaboration, InfraX and Nokia committed to pooling their expertise and resources to deliver state-of-the-art network infrastructure solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of InfraX's clients in the UAE.
Most importantly, Nokia officially opened its Open Innovation Lab in Dubai to not only boost new technologies adoption in the region but also innovate with new solutions and technologies that address specific regional challenges with its customers, partners as well as academia.
In 2024, Nokia marked its first entry into the microwave (MW) business with Zain Iraq through a three-year strategic partnership that aims to enhance network capacity and modernize the telco’s infrastructure. Furthermore, Nokia partnered with Telecom Egypt to bring 5G technology to Egypt for the first time last year.
In Saudi Arabia, Nokia’s long-standing presence since the inception of telecom networks established its close partnerships with local network operators in the country to deliver mobile and broadband networks. For the first time, globally, stc Group has deployed an AI-powered operations system on its network using Nokia’s MantaRay Self-Organizing Network (SON). Zain KSA and Nokia have also agreed to jointly develop 5G infrastructure based on Cloud RAN technology to leverage the potential of future technologies and contribute to the development of innovative services that enhance the user experience (UX).
Moreover, Nokia has partnered with Ooredoo Oman to deploy a state-of-the-art dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) wholesale network that will meet the evolving needs of hyperscalers’ data centers, AI-driven applications, and cloud-based platforms while establishing Oman as a key connectivity hub.
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New Leadership
Moving on from his executive role, Lundmark noted:
“I’m proud of the work we have done in re-establishing Nokia’s competitiveness and technology leadership and in positioning the company for growth.”
Justin Hotard will step in as President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia by April 1, 2025.
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