Nokia Oyj
Nokia Oyj, together with its subsidiaries, provides mobile, fixed, and cloud network solutions in North and Latin America, Greater China, India, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It operates in four segments: Network Infrastructure, Mobile Networks, Cloud and Network Services, and Nokia Technologies. The company offers fixed network solutions, such as fiber and copper technologies, access infrastructure, in-home Wi-Fi solutions, and cloud and virtualization services; IP network solutions, which delivers IP edge routing and data center networking solutions for residential, mobile, enterprise, and cloud applications; and optical networks solutions, which provides optical transport networks for metro, regional, and long-haul applications. It also provides mobile technology products, agentic AI platform, and services for radio access networks and microwave radio links for transport networks; and network management solutions, as well as network planning, optimization, network deployment, and technical support services. In addition, the company offers cloud and network services, including open, secure, automated, and scalable software and solutions; and 5G core, secure autonomous networks, private wireless and industrial edge, and network APIs. Further, it licenses intellectual property, including patents, technologies, and the Nokia brand. The company serves its products and services to defense communications energy and resources, enterprise and industrial campus, private networks, public sector, and transportation industries. Nokia Oyj was founded in 1865 and is headquartered in Espoo, Finland.
What does it do?
Nokia is a Finnish tech company that builds the invisible plumbing of the internet — the towers, cables, and software that let phone calls, texts, and data travel around the world. When a mobile carrier like AT&T or Vodafone wants to upgrade its network to 5G, Nokia is one of the companies they call to supply the equipment. Nokia also licenses its patents, meaning other companies pay Nokia just to use technology it invented. You probably don't use a Nokia phone anymore, but chances are your data has traveled through Nokia hardware today.
Nokia sits at the center of the global 5G buildout, which is still in progress across Europe, Asia, and developing markets — meaning demand for its core products isn't going away. It also benefits from a geopolitical tailwind: Western governments are pushing carriers to rip out Chinese-made Huawei equipment and replace it with trusted suppliers like Nokia and Ericsson. That policy shift has handed Nokia a larger slice of a market it might not have won on its own.
How does it make money?
Nokia makes most of its roughly $20 billion in annual revenue by selling physical network hardware — think 5G base stations, fiber cables, and routers — to telecom companies around the world. Its Mobile Networks segment is the biggest piece, covering the 5G towers and radio equipment that carriers need to build out coverage. Nokia also earns reliable, high-margin income from its Technologies division, which licenses its patent portfolio to smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung — those companies pay Nokia fees every time they sell a device. A smaller but growing segment called Cloud and Network Services sells software and managed services to carriers who want to run parts of their network digitally.
Why do investors care?
The core investment idea is that Nokia is a picks-and-shovels play on 5G — like selling the shovels during a gold rush, regardless of who wins. With revenue sitting around $20 billion and net income of $0.7 billion, Nokia isn't a high-growth story right now, but investors see potential as telecom spending recovers after a spending slowdown in 2023–2024. The company has also been cutting costs aggressively, which means if revenue stabilizes or grows, profits could expand faster than the top line. The wildcard is Nokia's patent licensing business, which generates high-margin cash and could be underappreciated by the market.
Deep Dive
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