TLDR
- Nokia stock rose ~6% on Friday, extending a 113% year-to-date gain
- Q1 net sales up 4% YoY, with AI and cloud customer revenue up 49%
- Arete Research upgraded NOK from neutral to buy; Morgan Stanley holds overweight
- Nokia agreed to transfer its Fixed Wireless Access business to Inseego, retaining a stake
- Jim Cramer called Nokia “a winner,” citing its technology comeback
Nokia (NOK) stock climbed nearly 6% on Friday, trading around $13.65, as a combination of strong Q1 results, analyst upgrades, and AI momentum pushed the stock higher.
The move extends a remarkable run. NOK is now up over 113% year-to-date and more than 155% over the past 12 months.
Volume was elevated too. Around 68.96 million shares changed hands on Friday, above the three-month daily average of roughly 65.97 million.
Nokia’s Q1 results gave investors plenty to work with. Net sales rose 4% year-over-year, with Optical Networks jumping 20%.
The standout number was a 49% increase in revenue from AI and cloud customers. Management pointed to rising investment from hyperscalers and enterprise AI workloads as the driver.
Nokia has also reported roughly €1 billion in AI-related orders, which has helped underpin the bullish case among analysts covering the stock.
Analyst Upgrades Add Fuel
Arete Research upgraded Nokia from neutral to buy on Thursday, sending the stock up 3.6% that day to an intraday high of $12.92. Volume surged 122% above average on the back of the upgrade.
Morgan Stanley reiterated an overweight rating earlier in the week. Nordea Equity Research also upgraded the stock to buy on April 24th.
Across the board, 12 analysts now carry a buy rating on Nokia, with four holds and two sells. The consensus sits at Moderate Buy, though the average price target of $9.71 is well below where the stock is currently trading.
Citigroup remains the notable outlier, maintaining a sell rating issued in January.
Nokia’s AI Positioning and the Inseego Deal
Nokia agreed to transfer its Fixed Wireless Access CPE business to Inseego. As part of the deal, Nokia will become a shareholder in Inseego and the two companies will pursue joint work in 6G, wireless edge computing, and AI-enabled connectivity.
Inseego held a conference call this week to discuss the acquisition, providing investors with more detail on the partnership structure and future plans.
The deal allows Nokia to shed a lower-margin hardware segment while retaining exposure to the FWA market through its Inseego stake.
Jim Cramer weighed in on Friday, calling Nokia “a winner” on air. He said, “I gotta hand it to those guys for sticking around because, wow, I think it’s got a lot of good technology.”
Nokia also raised its quarterly dividend to $0.0468, up from $0.04, representing an annualized yield of around 1.5%. The dividend will be paid on May 12th to investors of record as of April 28th.
One flag worth watching: the trailing price-to-earnings ratio sits around 80, which leaves the stock exposed to any miss on execution or earnings expectations. Analysts forecast full-year EPS of $0.41.
Nokia’s market cap now stands at approximately $74 billion. The 50-day moving average is $8.83 and the 200-day is $7.32, both well below the current price.
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