Nokia April-June sales drop after record 2023, pins hope on Vi deal
Nokia's sales in India continued to plunge in the second quarter of the 2024 calendar year, in line with rival Ericsson reporting a similar fall a few days back, with their big telco clients Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel cutting down on network capex spends having concluded their pan-India 5G rollouts.
Industry executives and analysts say Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson will now have to rely on fresh 4G and 5G gear supply deals with Vodafone Idea (Vi) to revive their plunging sales in India, and support global growth.
On Thursday, Nokia posted a steep 68% Year-on-Year (YoY) fall in India net sales to ₹3,007.3 crore in Q2, 2024, while Sweden's Ericsson reported a 44% YoY slide in sales in its Southeast Asia, Oceania and India market to ₹6,093 crore approx) in Q2, 2024. Ericsson does not reveal India-specific sales numbers.
In a statement, Nokia chief executive officer (CEO) Pekka Lundmark said India accounted for three quarters of the Finnish gear maker's 18% YoY overall sales decline (in constant currency) in Q2, 2024. «The big impact was the challenging year-ago comparison period, which saw the peak of India's rapid 5G deployment. India (now) accounts for three quarters of the decline.»
Nokia's mobile networks business net sales also fell 24% on a constant currency basis, mainly due to the decrease in India reflecting the fact that Q2, 2023 had represented the peak of the India's 5G deployment.
Ericsson CEO Borje Ekholm expects market conditions to remain challenging, as the pace of India investments
