Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark (pictured) was bullish about an improvement in market trends going into 2025, as its infrastructure and technology units helped the vendor deliver a strong Q4 2024.

In its earnings announcement, Nokia stated net sales at a constant currency grew 9 per cent year-on-year to €6 billion, fuelled by improvements across almost all of its business groups.

It swung back to a net profit of €813 million, after reporting a loss of €33 million in Q4 2023 due to a number of one-off items.

Sales from Network Infrastructure grew 17 per cent to €2 billion, due to improving demand from CSP customers, mainly in North America.

Notably, its chief rival Ericsson last week reported strong Q4 2024 numbers, buoyed by business in the US.

In terms of growth, Nokia Technologies was the standout, with net sales up 85 per cent to €463 million, driven by smartphone renewals and new growth areas, along with agreements struck during the quarter including multimedia deals with Samsung and HP.

Sales from Cloud and Network Services increased 7 per cent to €1.1 billion, though Mobile Networks took the gloss off slightly, falling 2 per cent to €2.4 billion.

The vendor explained sales trends were now stabilising following a strong performance in India and it saw some commercial momentum, with deals signed with Bharti Airtel and Deutsche Telekom.

Looking ahead to 2025, Lundmark said it expects improved trends in network infrastructure to “sustain and drive strong growth”, while pointing to potential around its 5G core and edge business.

On mobile networks, the Nokia boss expects improvement and it currently assumes “largely stable net sales”.

It forecast operating profit of between €1.9 billion and €2.4 billion in 2025.