KIANEWS India needs a healthy third party
06. 03. 2023 Monday / By: Robert Denes / Industrial / Exact time: BST / Print this page
N okia currently supplies 5G equipment to Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. Earlier, it only provided wired technology to the Mukesh Ambani-led telco, but managed to secure wireless deals with Ericsson and Samsung.
NEW DELHI:Finnish telecom equipment maker Nokia has said a healthy third-party operator would be good for the telecom industry and Indian consumers, but warned that if a telecom operator misses out on a technology generation shift, it will be very difficult to catch up with larger telecom operators.“What we are hearing about BSNL is that the narrative is changing now. The government decided to go back and invest. .A healthy third is very good for the industry and consumers... But the government and the regulator have to take that decision,” Nishant Batra, chief strategy and technology officer, Nokia, told ET in an interaction on the sidelines of Mobile World Congress.
He said Vodafone Idea was a listed company and "I shouldn't tell them what to do", but added that it was very difficult to catch up if you missed the technology transition.
Nokia currently supplies 5G equipment to Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. Earlier, it only provided wired technology to the Mukesh Ambani-led telco, but managed to secure wireless deals with Ericsson and Samsung. Nokia India sales rose 25% to €1.29 billion in December 2022 from €1.03 billion a year ago. India was Nokia's second most recent market in December 2022 due to the rapid rollout of its 5G network.
“In India, we gained more market share. But the point is not to shrink the telecom business to make the business look bigger. The point is to continue to grow by acquiring more shares and ensuring diversification,” said Batra.
The senior official said Nokia is ready to move as fast as India wants to support the rollout of the 5G network by Indian telecom operators.
"We're ready. We want to move as fast as India's rollout of 5G. And we've started seeing traffic increase."
He said Indian telecom operators have now started discussions to use the millimeter wave spectrum. "The debate is now on how this spectrum can represent the next level of growth in India in applications around home and enterprise use."
To monetize 5G, Batra said India needs to find its own use cases and not rely on global enterprise use cases.
“Western use cases may start from productivity, but Indian use cases start from security. Because you don't want to get cheap robots to replace expensive labor in India. So maybe the use cases start with security," Batra said.
Nokia last week redesigned its logo for the first time in decades to distance itself from its image as a phone company and focus on aggressive growth.
Batra said that with the rebranding and logo change, Nokia wants to be seen as a technology company rather than a telecommunications company.
"We don't want to be limited to telecommunications only. The fastest growing part of our business is non-telco. For us, this is an area of aspiration. So we want to make sure that the brand allows us to reflect Nokia's position, which is a technology player,” Batra said, adding that Nokia has achieved 22% growth in its non-telecom business.
“Non-telco for us means selling to cloud players and web scalars. We announced an agreement with Microsoft. We sell directly to large enterprise system integrators. We had a big announcement with Kyndryl. We sell to federal governments. So, non-telecom businesses are giving a big boost to growth,” he added.
India has become Nokia's third largest country for 6G standardization. "India is the third largest market for us in terms of 6G work. The team has grown a lot and will continue to grow," Batra said.
The company has started hiring top talent at its 6G standardization office in Bengaluru, and India has become Nokia's third largest country for 6G standardization participation.
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