Nokia reported comparable operating profit of €434mn for the second quarter of 2026, up 18% on the same period last year and comfortably ahead of the €382mn that analysts polled by LSEG had forecast.
Net sales rose 8% to €4.82bn, or 9% at constant currency, lifted by the companies racing to build AI data centres. The beat extended a run that began earlier in the year, when comparable operating profit jumped 54% in the first quarter.
For the first half, net sales reached €9.25bn, up 6% as reported and 7% at constant currency, while the group operating margin widened to 9.0% in the second quarter, an improvement of 70 basis points. The Finnish network-equipment maker’s Network Infrastructure division carried the quarter, with sales up 12% to €2.04bn.
Optical Networks grew 20% and IP Networks 16%, both supplying the optical networking and routing that hyperscalers are buying to wire their AI clusters together and to link data centres across long distances.
Sales to AI and cloud customers more than doubled year on year, reaching €446mn, and the unit booked €2.8bn of fresh orders during the quarter.
Much of that came from selling fibre-optic gear to the large technology firms building AI data centres, a market Nokia has pushed into hard over the past year.
“Demand remains strong, while supply continues to be the main industry constraint, prompting our customers to place longer-term orders,” chief executive Justin Hotard said.
New orders ran well ahead of what Nokia actually shipped, a sign of a lengthening backlog. The €2.8bn of AI and cloud orders booked in the quarter comfortably exceeded the €446mn those customers bought over the same three months, as buyers moved to lock in scarce supply ahead of delivery. Mobile Infrastructure, still the larger unit by revenue, grew 6% to €2.68bn, a steadier showing than the surging data-centre business.
The mobile networks market has stabilised after several lean years of slowing 5G spend, though it is nowhere near the double-digit growth Nokia is now booking from cloud customers, and it remains the part of the business most exposed to the memory chips whose prices are climbing.
The comparable figures flattered a messier bottom line. On a reported basis, Nokia swung to an operating loss of €50mn and posted net profit of just €5mn, down from €96mn a year earlier, after restructuring and other one-off charges weighed on the accounts.
Nokia expects about €800mn of restructuring charges across 2026, including €350mn tied to integrating its operations in China, €200mn for European restructuring, and €250mn under an earlier cost-cutting programme.
It held the quarterly dividend at €0.04 a share, payable on August 6.
The company raised its full-year outlook for comparable operating profit to between €2.1bn and €2.6bn, up from €2.0bn to €2.5bn, though €0.1bn of the increase is a technical adjustment linked to reclassifying discontinued operations.
Hotard said the group was on track to finish “somewhat above the midpoint” of that range.
The raised guidance still leaves most of the year to play for. Nokia earned roughly €715mn of comparable operating profit across the first half, which means the top of its €2.6bn target depends on the second half delivering close to €1.9bn, a back-loaded shape that leaves little room for slippage.
The results arrive against a backdrop of rising memory chip prices, which AI demand has pushed to record levels and which are squeezing makers of telecoms and networking equipment.
Rival Ericsson has flagged similar cost pressure, though Nokia’s second-quarter numbers suggest it is absorbing the hit for now.
Hotard, who joined from Intel and took over as chief executive in 2025, has steered Nokia towards the data-centre buildout rather than the slower telecoms-equipment cycle that defined the company for much of the past decade.
The next test comes with third-quarter results, when investors will watch whether that €2.8bn order book converts into the second-half momentum he is promising.
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