Speculations about a possible sale of Nokia appeared in Finnish media
The last decade for Nokia was a period with a lot of turbulence, with ups and downs and the company transforming itself from the world’s biggest phone maker to one of the world’s biggest network infrastructure companies. With the recent news of suspending dividend payout and need for further investment in 5G because competition is moving faster than expected, Nokia lost a quarter of its market cap and reminders about the troubling events from the past appeared.
Finnish medium Yle.fi shared thoughts of financial analyst Juha-Matti Mäntylä, speculating that if Nokia’s troubles continue, the company might be an ideal candidate for sale. Ericsson is not “marked” for sale, because 60% of Ericsson’s ownership in Sweden, Huawei is in a solid situation and “belongs to the workers”, while 80% of Nokia ownership is foreign, mostly American institutions.
Yle speculates that Samsung, Cisco and Oracle might be candidates for a possible purchase. The US administration is actively seeking solutions for US fallback in the space of 5G and according to some reports, both Cisco and Oracle were approached by the administration to consider creating a joint 5G venture. Samsung already has a “small” networks division, that has around 10% market share in mobile networks. Nokia’s patents and end-to-end solution will surely benefit Samsung in their 5G ambitions, if a possible sale is considered.
As Yle mentions, selling Nokia would be regarded as a disgraceful move by Finland and surely would cause public uproar, because after all, Nokia is a national pride for Finland. A huge multinational corporation that once ruled the mobile phone world and still rules in the network segment originated from a country with 5 million people and rough geographical conditions, forcing the Finns to invest in education and innovation, which lead to Nokia.
Nokia’s share took a hit last week after the financial report for Q3 was posted, but this week the stock price slightly improved (around 2%). The next few quarters will show how the situation around Nokia will develop.
