Nokia Oyj (NYSE:NOK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

There is a lot of kind of underlying demand. This is one comment on the fixed access. And then if I talk about the other two segments, Optical and IP. What we have seen in the past is that actually first come an access wave investment. And now we have seen both fixed access and mobile 5G access investment. Then when there is more penetration, more users who start to add data traffic to the network, then the next wave is then going to happen in the IP and optical layer, which is more in the core part of the network to be able to deal with all the traffic that these new access networks generate. So this is something that could very well be driving the IP and Optical markets going forward. So I mean, it’s impossible to give you a scientifically correct 100% answer, but we have reasons to be optimistic about the market development despite the fact that, of course, we recognize the overall macroeconomic uncertainties in the world.

David Mulholland: Thank you, Alex. We’ll take our next question from Aleks Peterc from Societe General. Aleks, please go ahead.

Aleksander Peterc: Hey, good morning and thank you for taking my question. Congratulations to the strong results across the board. I just like to understand in Mobile Networks, how the year will shape out. There’s obviously some margin pressure from the geographical mix changes here. So presumably, you will see a better second half than the first half. If you could comment on that a little bit. And then just today briefly, if you could also tell us if in 2024, 2025, you think you can still marginally grow revenue in mobile networks despite what you see being a market contraction in those two years? Thank you.

Pekka Lundmark: Well, first of all, the market contraction that we had on that slide if you take into account the overall 2022, 2025 market expectation, which is 5%, it is actually quite small. So then it comes all the way back to the market share question. We do believe that Mobile Networks can grow this year, we believe that it will actually be our fastest-growing business group this year. But it’s too early to give any guidance on topline for 2024, 2025 other than we have a general ambition to continue to grow. Then the margin pressure, it is likely that when we look into 2023, that we will, in Mobile Networks, go back to earlier type of seasonality where the first half of the year is weaker and then the second half of the year is stronger.

So we are, of course, expecting the full-year to be largely stable, weaker first half, stronger second half. Remember that we did say after Q3 last year, that we are still keeping the 6.5% and 9.5% guidance for the full-year despite the fact that we were ahead of it after three quarters. So we saw this coming. It was not a surprise and we have built all this into our assumption for 2023 as well when we are giving this 7% to 10% assumption for the full-year.

David Mulholland: Thank you, Aleks. We’ll take our next question from Frank Maao from DNB. Frank, please go ahead.

Frank Maao: Yes. Hello and thanks for taking the question. On the thorough business update earlier, so a couple of my questions have been answered. Let me see here. Yes, I think a key question for me is really on the margin side. I mean, do you see any €“ do you expect to be able to offset the inflation pressures that we’re seeing, especially on the salary side short-term now and going into the medium term? Or do you need to €“ with just ordinary measures? Or do you need to potentially take new measures to sustain the kind of cost efficiency and productivity momentum that you had? Thank you.