Finnish networking firm Nokia has seen improvements in competitiveness and a good pace of growth, according to the company's CEO Pekka Lundmark.
He was referring to the company's Q3 financial report, released on Thursday, which showed six percent year-on-year growth and comparable operating profits that outpaced the same quarter last year. In July-September Nokia's comparable operating profit reached 658 million euros, compared to 633 million euros a year ago.
Nokia has also landed major 5G equipment contracts in India. The company announced on Monday that it won a multi-year deal with Reliance Jio India "to build one of the largest 5G networks in the world."
The Finnish telecom firm noted that the deal means Nokia will be supplying India's three largest mobile operators.
"We are clearly taking market share," Lundmark said, as he announced the quarterly results.
The company's turnover grew by 16 percent, year-on-year, amounting to 6.24 billion euros, taking currency exchange rates into account. Without the effect of exchange rates, the turnover amounted to six percent.
Lundmark said the results showed the firm's accelerating growth was progressing well and after making major investments in product and tech development, the benefits are starting to show.
However, despite the CEO's enthusiasm, the company's profitability fell short of analysts' expectations, with operating profits falling to 10.5 percent in Q3, compared to 11.7 percent one year ago.
That development may be one of the reasons Nokia's shares were down by more than six percent early on Thursday afternoon.
Lundmark pointed out that the semiconductor supply chain shortfalls have improved recently, with demand and supply starting to balance out.
Overall, the company said potential threats to further growth include the general weakened economic outlook as well as geopolitical risks.
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Former Fortum CEO
Before Lundmark became Nokia's CEO in 2020, he was chief executive at the Finnish majority state-owned energy company Fortum from 2015-2020, during the period when the firm acquired the German gas giant Uniper.
That acquisition was short-lived however, as Fortum agreed to sell its stake in the company to the German state last month, due to Uniper's rapidly-deteriorating financial situation.
The struggling company faced further difficulties after Russia stopped exporting natural gas via the Nordstream pipeline to Germany.
Lundmark has not yet commented on how he now feels about the acquisition, despite repeated requests from the media.
An STT journalist asked Lundmark about Uniper, but the former Fortum chief remained quiet on the issue, saying that he was speaking on behalf of Nokia, not Fortum.