Earnings Call Transcript - NOK Q2 2024

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Nokia's second quarter 2024 results call. I'm David Mulholland, Head of Nokia investor relations. Today, with me is Pekka Lundmark, our President and CEO, along with Marco Wirén, our CFO. Before we get started, a quick disclaimer. During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding our future business, proposed transactions and financial performance, and these statements are predictions that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results we currently expect. Factors that could cause such differences can be both external as well as internal operating factors. We have identified such risks in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 20-F, which is available on our Investor Relations website. Within today's presentation, references to growth rates will mostly be on a constant currency basis and margins will be based on our comparable reporting. Please note that our Q2 report and the presentation that accompanies this call are published on our website. This report includes both reported and comparable financial results, and a reconciliation between the two. In terms of the agenda for today, Pekka will go through some of the key messages from the quarter, Marco will give you a deeper dive on the financial performance and then Pekka will make a few comments on a couple of particular highlights from Q2 and then we'll move to Q&A. With that, let me hand over to Pekka.

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

Thanks, David. And thank you for all dialing in today. Before we discuss Q2, I would like to give a quick reminder of some important announcements we made recently. We, of course, announced the planned divestment of our Submarine Networks business to the French State and also our intention to acquire Infinera, a North American optical networking company. The Infinera acquisition will significantly increase the scale and profitability of our optical networks business. It will enable us to deliver faster innovation for customers and expand our position with webscale and regionally in North America. These transactions will focus on strengthening our network infrastructure business with its future built on free-market leaning units, fixed networks, IP networks, and optical networks. Moving on to our second quarter performance. Marco will go into more details, but the headlines are that the market remained weak during the quarter. We saw an 18% decline in our top line year-on-year, but it should be noted that three-quarters of that decline was driven by India, with Q2 last year marking the peak of their 5G deployment. We were pleased to see order intake trends continuing to improve in Q2, with the book-to-bill above 1 and orders growing year-on-year. Again, this strength was most notable in network infrastructure and supports our expectation of a significant improvement in net sales in the second half of 2024. We also continued to have good deal traction across the business groups. We won some important deals in NI in the quarter, especially with new customers. For mobile networks, we won some completely new customers such as MEO in Portugal and also expanded our share at many existing customers. In addition, cloud and network services is also making good progress on winning core network deals and with our Network as Code platform. Regarding our cost savings program, we've been taking quick action under the program that we announced in October. We have so far actioned €400 million of run rate savings over the targeted €800 million to €1.2 billion in gross savings by 2026. We had another strong quarter of free cash flow with approximately €400 million in Q2. And finally, our full year outlook is unchanged and we are currently tracking towards the midpoint or slightly below the midpoint of our comparable operating profit guidance of €2.3 billion to €2.9 billion. Regarding our free cash flow guidance of 30% to 60% conversion, we are tracking towards the higher end of that range. With that, let me hand over to Marco, who will go into the financials in more detail.

Marco Wirén, CFO

Thank you, Pekka. And good morning, everyone. Welcome from my side as well. Before I get into numbers, let me make one important comment. Considering the planned sale of Alcatel Submarine Networks, the business is now reported under discontinued operations and is no longer seen in our Network Infrastructure unit figures. As Pekka mentioned, the environment remained challenging. In Q2 2024, we saw a 18% sales decline compared to a year-ago quarter. India was really the main driver here, but pleasingly we returned to modest growth in North America. Gross margin increased by 450 basis points, mainly driven by mobile networks improvement, in part due to the €150 million of accelerated revenue recognition related to the AT&T contract resolution. Our operating margin at 9.5% was 190 basis points below the prior year. This also benefited from the accelerated revenue recognition. However, the decrease in top line negatively impacted the operating profit. Then, Network Infrastructure. Sales declined by 11%, with declines across all three business lines, but we did see a sequential improvement from quarter one. The net sales decline also impacted our operating margin in the quarter along with somewhat higher indirect cost of sales. Importantly, as we mentioned before, we saw a continuation of the improving order intake trends which support our view of a significant improvement in net sales growth in the second half. Given our current view of the market and the pace of demand recovery, we have revised our net sales planning assumption down from our prior plus 2% to 8% growth to now minus 2% to plus 3%. Our operating margin assumption is 11.5% to 14.5%. The removal of ASN from NI would have improved profitability by 100 to 150 basis points and the underlying reduction in our margin assumption is due to the slower market recovery. Moving to Mobile Networks, the net sales decline was mainly driven by a decrease in India, reflecting the fact that quarter two in 2023 was the peak for the India 5G deployments. Positively, on a sequential basis, all regions increased compared with quarter one. We resolved our outstanding negotiation with AT&T in relation to our existing RAN contracts and ensured we maintained the values originally agreed in the contract. Our operating margin assumption is 4% to 7% as we continue to take quick action on costs. Turning to Cloud and Network Services, it declined 16% year-on-year. We have taken steps to adjust our net sales assumptions for Cloud and Network Services to a range of minus 5% to 0% from the previous minus 2% to plus 3%, although we left our operating margin assumption unchanged. Nokia Technologies showed a solid run rate of €1.3 billion after the significant smartphone renewals in the first quarter. Additionally, we signed an agreement with a video streaming platform related to our multimedia technology, marking a meaningful opportunity for Nokia.

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

Thanks a lot, Marco. So let's now look at some of the business highlights from the quarter. On 27th of June, we announced the definitive agreement for Nokia to acquire Infinera in a deal we believe has strong strategic and financial rationale. There are three main reasons for the deal. First, we see a strong strategic and synergistic rationale for the transaction. There is a strong strategic fit with highly complementary customer, geographic and technology profiles between the two companies. The timing is optimal to build on the strong momentum both businesses have had in recent years and improves our long-term growth opportunities. From a synergy perspective, we target net run rate synergies of €200 million by 2027 at the operating profit level. Second, we believe this transaction will strongly enhance our Network Infrastructure business. The transaction will increase our enterprise exposure in NI, particularly considering Infinera's recent webscale design wins. Finally, we expect the transaction to be accretive to Nokia's comparable operating profit and EPS in year one and to deliver over 10% comparable EPS accretion in 2027. We also expect the acquisition to deliver a return on invested capital comfortably above Nokia's cost of capital. The customer reaction to the deal has so far been very positive. We also announced the agreement to divest Submarine Networks. Going forward, that means that NI will be built on three market-leading pillars. Fixed networks continue to be well positioned to benefit from strong demand in the fiber market. Our IP networks business continues to see the ramp-up of FP5 products and the expansion into new markets. We are targeting mid-single digit growth for fixed networks. On a pro forma basis for the two transactions this year, Network Infrastructure would be an €8.4 billion revenue business targeting mid-single-digit growth.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Pekka and Marco. Before we move to the Q&A session, please let me give you one date for your diary. We're planning to hold our next business group progress update on our Network Infrastructure business on Tuesday, the 3rd of September. We plan to hold the event virtually and we will send out a save-the-date in the coming days. As usual, for the Q&A session, as a courtesy to others in the queue, could you please limit yourself to one question and a brief follow-up? I will now hand the call back to David Mulholland.

Francois-Xavier Bouvignies, Analyst

My question would be on the Network Infrastructure specifically. So when we look at your fiscal or full year EBIT margins for NI and the group EBIT margin, if we assume it's similar Q2 versus Q3 based on what you said on the seasonality, this would imply NI EBIT margins on the high-single-digit 10% range in Q3. To get to full year margins, you would need like 20% plus of EBIT margins in Q4 with a very, very high top line growth. Can you explain how can we model such steep recovery when in H1 you did 6% NI EBIT margins?

Marco Wirén, CFO

As we mentioned also in the release, the quarter three margin is a balance between a weaker Mobile Networks margin and we won't have the benefit of the accelerated revenue recognition due to the AT&T deal resolution that we had in quarter two and, of course, a good improvement in Network Infrastructure. Then, yes, we expect a very strong quarter four, primarily driven by leverage from the sales volume we expect in the quarter.

Sandeep Deshpande, Analyst

My question is back to the strong revival in the second half. Is there a reason for this much better than normal seasonal behavior in the second half? Is it new projects?

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

First of all, remember that the comparables get significantly easier because last year was a bit of an exception. This year, we expect the whole thing to reverse itself. We have had three quarters of strong order intake, which has been building order backlog. This still requires that the good momentum in orders continues in Q3 because there will be orders that will be needed in Q3 and to be delivered in Q4. This is supported by the expected delivery times and general market comments highlighting a recovery.

Marco Wirén, CFO

The €400 million that we mentioned is on a run rate basis. One-third is coming from cost of sales, and two-thirds from OpEx. We have been very fast in taking these actions, and we are confident that we are on the right track regarding the cost-saving program.

Janardan Menon, Analyst

On the Cloud and Network Services division: Given your guidance for Cloud and Network Services is minus 5% to 0%, you still need, in my calculation, more than 50% growth from Q2 to Q4. Just wondering what is driving that? Is it to the core network wins that you talked about in Europe?

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

Unlike in NI, in CNS, this year's seasonality will be similar to the previous years. The full year result is expected to be made during Q4. The disposal has a negative impact on the comparisons, but the momentum in core networks and other areas supports a positive outlook.

Joseph Zhou, Analyst

Do you actually get any compensation from AT&T at all? Are you recognizing a normal revenue from AT&T in Q1, and then the €150 million in Q2?

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

The underlying contract stipulates what we deliver to AT&T, and based on those deliveries, we recognize revenue. The €150 million is just an acceleration due to the new amendment to the deal with AT&T.

Simon Leopold, Analyst

I wanted to ask about the news out of Germany regarding the government taking some action against Chinese vendors. How do you see that opportunity?

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

We've noted the news. There’s some clarity and some ambiguity. The mobile core part is clear, but the RAN part still needs more information to assess what it will mean for our market.

Artem Beletski, Analyst

Could you provide some further color on pace of recovery in Network Infrastructure? And what are key puts and takes there?

Pekka Lundmark, President and CEO

There is no huge difference between the three segments in terms of the revised outlook. We continue to have good orders momentum in all of them. We expect some revenues from fixed networks to support Q4 revenue.

David Mulholland, Head of Investor Relations

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. I would like to remind you that, during the call today, we've made a number of forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results currently expected.

Operator, Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.