Across the world, a number of countries are ready to construct infrastructure for the latest mobile connectivity technology called 5G. The US restrictions and banning of the Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei could prove to be beneficial to one of its closest global rivals in telecom equipment industry – Nokia, said Rajeev Suri, the Chief Executive of Nokia.

“Perhaps there is long term opportunity but more than that, it’s hard to say at this point,” Suri told investors when he was questioned about the US regulatory issued currently being faced by Huawei.

The increasing tensions and the banning of Huawei – the largest telecom equipment maker and technology owner of the world, by the US Commerce Department could turn out to be beneficial for Nokia and its Swedish peer and another Huawei rival Ericsson, expect analysts.

A quarterly loss for the previous quarter was reported by Nokia last month primarily because of its inability and failure to be able to supply 5G telecoms equipment within specified deadlines.

Nokia has not been swift enough to set up and make functional 5G technology, acknowledged Suri. He identified a number of reasons for this failure which included the delay of the company in merging its own technology plans with those of acquired Alcatel-Lucent.

“We are late in 5G by a few weeks to a couple of months,” Suri told the Finnish company’s annual shareholder meeting. Since the company had reported first quarter earnings in late April, it has managed to acquire one new commercial 5G contract. Nokia said.

Suri said that the company has been focused on making a lead in the construction and building up of 5G telecom networks. He said that the company is winning deals and “rolling out some of the world’s first 5G networks.” The company claimed that currently it has in its kitty 37 5G commercial contracts. Nokia said that out of that number, 20 are with major telecom service providers and with big names such as T-Mobile, AT&T, STC, and Telia. Suri also said that more than half of the 37 contracts are comprised of wider portfolio elements that cannot be matched easily by the competitors of the company.

The annual financial guidance issued by the company earlier would be achieved by it and he was confident of the performance of the company, Suri said trying to assure the investors of the company. While announcing the quarterly results in April, Nokia restated its forecast for the entire of 2019 of achieving underlying diluted earnings per share of 25-29 euro cents, and non-IFRS operating margin of 9-12 per cent.

There was a 1.9 per cent hike in the share price of Nokia in late trading in Helsinki.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)