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Nokia Oyj (NOK)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 27, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello and welcome to the Nokia Q1 2017 Earnings Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Matt Shimao, Head of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nokia's first quarter 2017 conference call. I am Matt Shimao, Head of Nokia Investor Relations. Rajeev Suri, President and CEO of Nokia, and Kristian Pullola, CFO of Nokia, are here in Espoo with me today. During this call, we'll be making forward-looking statements regarding the future business and financial performance of Nokia and its industry. 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, such as general, economic and industry conditions, as well as internal operating factors. We have identified such risks in more detail on pages 67 through 85 of our 2016 annual report on Form 20-F, our interim report for Q1 2017 issued today, as well as our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Please note that our results release, the complete interim report with tables, and the presentation on our website include non-IFRS results information in addition to the reported results information. Our complete results report with tables, available on our website, includes a detailed explanation of the content of the non-IFRS information and a reconciliation between the non-IFRS and the reported information. With that, Rajeev over to you.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Matt and thanks to all of you for joining our Q1 results call. Nokia's first quarter results showed our improving business momentum, and that we are effectively moving beyond the integration efforts of 2016 to making 2017 a year of execution and performance. In the quarter, we slowed the rate of our top-line decline, delivered a strong growth margin and improved group-level profitability. We also saw encouraging signs of stabilization in Mobile Networks, significant, even if early, signs of improvement in Applications & Analytics, and year-on-year expansion in both sales and profits in Nokia Technologies. We were able to deliver these solid results, even though, Q1 tends to be our seasonally-weakest quarter, and even though we had challenges in our IP/Optical Networks and Fixed Networks business groups. This truly shows the power of our end-to-end portfolio. So in short, I'm pleased, even if not fully satisfied, both with where we landed in Q1 and with our operational momentum as we head into the rest of the year. As you will recall, in recent quarters you've heard me talk about three key priorities for Nokia in 2017: stabilizing or top line, delivering our cost savings, and executing our strategy. In each of these three areas, we made progress in the first quarter. Starting with the top line, and as you've seen, we substantially slowed the rate of our sales decline. Group-level non-IFRS net sales in the quarter were €5.4 billion, down 4% year-on-year. Our Network sales of €4.9 billion were down 6% year-on-year. The comparable numbers for Q4 2016 were a 13% decline at a group level and 14% for Networks. Underlying this improved performance was a number of large deals that leverage our end-to-end portfolio, a continued improvement in our win rate, more cross-selling opportunities and further expansion…

Kristian Pullola - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Rajeev. I will start today by spending a few minutes on our reporting structure, and then continue with the financial performance of Nokia Technologies and Group Common and Other, before commenting on our cash performance in Q1 and highlighting key cash items for Q2. Finally, I will take you through FIE and taxes, as well as progress around our cost savings target and the guidance for the full-year 2017. But first, let me say a few words on our acquisition of Comptel, which we announced on February 9. The cash offer that we made valuing Comptel at approximately €350 million was well received and accepted by the clear majority of their shareholders. This allows us to now proceed with the squeeze out of the remaining count of shares. As we gained control of the company in late Q1, we already consolidated Comptel's balance sheet into our Q1 financials. And the first full quarter of financials will be reported as part of Applications & Analytics in Q2. Moving on to a brief discussion on the re-casted 2016 quarterly financials; we have reviewed the allocation of certain expenses by function and segment and moved to a more activity-based allocations, resulting in changes how expenses are presented. In addition, as discussed last quarter as part of the Alcatel-Lucent integration, we have harmonized our FX hedging practices and simplified the related financial reporting. Overall, the recasts are small and have no impact on our business narratives. You can find the details on pages 46 through 48 in our press release issued today. Looking further towards Q2 earnings, there will be additional changes as we align our reporting structure with our new organizational structure, effective April 1. Starting from Q2, Ultra Broadband Networks will compose of the Mobile Networks, Global Services and Fixed…

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Kristian. For the Q&A session, please limit yourself to one question only. Carrie, please go ahead.

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from Achal Sultania of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Achal Sultania - Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Ltd.: Hi, good afternoon. My question is on IPR. Obviously, you have now removed the guidance of €800 million of IPR revenues excluding Apple. I'm just trying to understand what has changed in the last few months in the process that you have to – that has become slightly more uncertain in terms of whether the size of the renegotiation or the timing of these renegotiations that you have to move away from the guidance, especially given the fact that you're not talking about like deepening some of these agreements in China. So that probably should be – we should be reading it as a positive. So I'm surprised why that guidance is still not valid.

Kristian Pullola - Nokia Oyj

Management

Maybe I'll clarify here. So the – it wasn't really guidance for the future. It was a point in time statement that we made each and every quarter when it comes to what is the run rate of our IPR business. What we decided to do now for this quarter was actually to give a more granular breakout of the technologies business revenue per licensing and product business. And in a similar way as before, then clearly call out how much of that licensing revenue would be non-recurring in nature so that you get the same information as before about the IPR business. So there is no kind of pullback on any guidance here as you indicated in your question; just more granular actual reporting.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Achal, for your question. And by the way, you can find that disclosure on page 26 of the press release. Carrie, we'll take our next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Sandeep Deshpande of JPMorgan. Please go ahead

Sandeep Sudhir Deshpande - JPMorgan Securities Plc

Analyst

Thank you for letting me on. My question, Rajeev, is regarding the businesses that you're trying to get into, the close verticals to your core business. How much do you think are you targeting revenue to be there this year? Or is this really a 2018 revenue opportunity for you in terms of reporting it to the market? Thank you.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Sandeep. Yeah, we think that likely orders in Q4 if things go by the plan, and 2018 meaningful revenues, particularly from the new product launch that we will do in IP routing. We're already getting traction in Optical that paves the way for this to happen.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Sandeep. Carrie, next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Gardiner of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Andrew M. Gardiner - Barclays Capital Securities Ltd.

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. I'm just interested in a bit more insight into the gross margin performance in the quarter. Rajeev, I mean, you highlighted just how strong it was, particularly for what is normally a seasonally-weak quarter. Can you give us any insight as to how you're seeing mix evolve through 2Q and 3Q? Can this level of gross margin be sustained for the next couple of quarters given how you see your product mix evolving, particularly given what you've described for sort of IP Networks trends coming through the next couple of quarters? Thank you.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Andrew. So for Q1, we benefited from a good regional mix, and also a good product mix within that. We continue to benefit from the end-to-end portfolio that's becoming more strategic for customers and also providing us opportunities for cross sell. And then finally of course, the disciplined operating model we have, which allows us to continue to have improvements in COGS, in fixed production overheads, and we've also seen the reduction in COGS help us to continually strengthen our margins. So those are the things. And overall for 2017, obviously that we have reaffirmed the guidance.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Andrew. Carrie, next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Robert Sanders of Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Robert Sanders - Deutsche Bank AG

Analyst

Yeah, hi. Good afternoon. Maybe you could just talk a bit about the routing business, given that it was one of the areas of disappointment. How quickly do you think that business can start to reaccelerate? Is there any product cycle that's coming or something that could drive that business back upwards? That would be great, thanks.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Robert. So, what's happening is that the higher spend is taking place in co-routing and in the cloud players in that space. And that's where we're not present to the same degree. And so, the new product refresh that's coming, it's looking very good. We think it will allow us to increase our competitiveness and actually leapfrog and that'll come at some point mid of this year. And once that's launched and we start discussions with our customers, we think this will give us meaningful strength in Q4 in terms of order intake, and then turning into revenues for 2018. So the rebound is more medium term and – 2018 onwards.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Rob. Carrie, next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Richard Kramer of Arete Research. Please go ahead.

Richard Kramer - Arete Research Services LLP

Analyst

Thanks very much. Rajeev, you talked about healthy orders and you also talked about a high conversion of the pipeline, even with the – obviously the weaker performance in routing. Given the target of having stable or even growing revenues, have you now reached a sort of greater than one times book to bill? And with respect to these orders and the conversion of the pipeline, do you think you're taking meaningful market share, or is it sort of too early to say given that the industry's still sort of recovering in terms of willingness to spend money?

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Richard. So, yes, we look at order intake, order backlog, all those metrics. Q4 was promising. Q1's been good. We need to watch Q2 now to give us enough granularity and visibility that the remainder of the year will track well according to our plans. But I will say that it's partially the end-to-end portfolio, it's the competitiveness of the product line-up that's giving us this high conversion rate. So I'm very pleased in particular with Mobile Networks' conversion rate that we've seen increase. In terms of your market share question, the end-to-end portfolio is really helping with operators, as we always said it would, but now it's starting to get real traction. But I think the right way to look at market share is we're very pleased with the encouraging start to the year, but you've got to look at it at least on a three quarter basis to start to declare victory that we're actually getting market share gains. Great start to the year, but not yet willing to call whether we're getting market share gains.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Richard. Carrie, we'll take our next question, and as a reminder, please limit yourself to just one question. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Gareth Jenkins of UBS. Please go ahead.

Gareth Jenkins - UBS Ltd.

Analyst

Thanks. Just a quick question on swap outs. I wondered whether you could firm up some of the timing for the expenses of swap outs, and maybe whether you're able to parse some of those back by selling new product into those operators where you'd normally swap out.

Kristian Pullola - Nokia Oyj

Management

So thanks, Gareth. I really don't have anything else to add to what we have in the release on the timing, €450 million expected for the year, and then the remainder in 2018. When it comes to, does this give us an opportunity to upsell, clearly, that's what we need to aim for. We are putting in kind of newer gear where then there are upsell opportunities, and clearly as part of the execution of the swaps, the teams are also focused on identifying additional opportunities for upsell.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Correct and I'd just add, Gareth, that China is more advanced in terms of swap outs and North America activity levels are starting to pick up.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Gareth. Carrie, next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Alex Duval of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Alexander Duval - Goldman Sachs International

Analyst

Yes, many thanks indeed for your time. I just wanted to get a bit more granularity on the wireless revenues. Clearly very solid versus expectations, and I wondered if you could give a little bit more in terms of what drove that. I'm trying to understand was it more to do with share shift? Was is about sort of the stabilization in the market? Or potentially and maybe in combination with this last factor, was there some catch up from the previously-delayed Alcatel base station sale because obviously there was some delays as you were aligning customer roadmaps. Many thanks.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Alex. So, I don't think a big change in the market. In fact, maybe the market's slightly worse because China Unicom announced a big CapEx reduction. But sort of roughly the same as we had talked about in the Capital Markets Day. And no catch up discussion in particular. We benefited from the regional mix. You saw North America, some of the customers that were not spending are now spending. That's a positive. Small sales intensification is starting to happen. And as we always said, the bright spot for this year will be North America, although there are puts and takes. I mean, it'll be watching the space. India is the other. And it appears parts of Asia Pacific are seeing a rebound, particularly Japan and Korea, which are coming up from the bottom that used to be in that market.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Okay, thank you, Alex. Carrie, next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Stuart Jeffrey of Natixis. Please go ahead.

Stuart Jeffrey - Natixis

Analyst

Thank you. Hello, everyone. I had a question on cross-selling opportunities. As you talk about these coming through, I would've expected them to show up more in the routing and optic side, given that your footprint in mobile is so much bigger, and yet that doesn't seem to have happened. So could you just explain why we're not seeing that impacting routing, and where the cross selling is actually starting to come through? Thanks.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Stuart. So, I think it's a two-way street, because we're actually also seeing it in mobile, given that there are customers that were IP optics customers and we're now selling them mobile equipment. For instance, in U.S. there are a number of smaller carriers like this. We saw some strength in optical, for instance, in Reliance in India. We call that out, and that was somewhere we went and won a deal in optical where Nokia's channel was strong. We saw the same in Fixed in India. We're now seeing traction in Japan for Fixed. Somewhat for IP as well. But I think when we start to look at cross sell, we measure our solution practices that are end-to-end. We have a number of those. We measure our multi-business group associated deal pipeline, and again, that is increasing, and that pipeline, if it increases, of course that will convert to orders to some place. We're seeing strength in cloud, which is again a cross-sell because it involves many of our business groups. So all put together, this product refresh issue in IP, once that's done, we'll see essentially more cross sell in IP routing as well.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Stuart. Carrie, next question please.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Sébastien Sztabowicz of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead Sébastien Sztabowicz - Kepler Cheuvreux SA: Yes, Sébastien Sztabowicz. One question on your Red Compartida project in Mexico, could you please comment a little bit on the bidding tender and the pricing condition of this very big deal? Will it be a profitable project above the last time of the deal? And also, do you see any specific exhibition risk on this large scale project? Thank you.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Sébastien. So, this is a project that we really wanted to get. It's a big flagship deal. It's our largest ever in Latin America, and it's a unique business model on the right kind of spectrum, with 700 MHz spectrum, so potentially large rollout. We want a good slice of that. It's actually a good end-to-end deal, because we've got about 40% of the radio, but a very large part of the core and other transport and OSS and so on, so it's really a multi-business group end-to-end deal for us. It makes sense long term otherwise we wouldn't have done it, so to your profitability question. And we should hopefully see help from this at the latter part of the year in turning Latin America a little bit more favorably, because that market has macro issues and operator issues and so on. And potentially even more help in 2018.

Kristian Pullola - Nokia Oyj

Management

But I guess it's fair to say that it's a large project, it has all of the opportunities and risks that come with a large project, but we are in the business of doing large projects. So in that sense, it's business as usual.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Right.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thank you, Sébastien. So Carrie, we'll take our next question.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Tim Long of BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Timothy Patrick Long - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Thank you. Just wanted to ask about the European region; it looks like it's been under a little pressure the last few quarters here. Just, is this mostly macro? And maybe a little bit of color on which of your segments might be holding up better or worse in the European market. Thank you.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Tim. Yes, it is macro. It's Eastern Europe continues to be slow, Russia. It's also a little bit concern about the election timing and how that will unfold. It's much more about evolution of 4G on the mobile side, a little bit slow on the IP side and Fixed. There is potential for a lot of fiber deals to start coming through in the longer term with fiber to the x type of projects. So, it's sort of macro and sort of the investment climate in Europe given that there are so many operators and consolidation's yet to happen. So all of these things put together, Europe will continue to be weak overall as a market this year.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

And it looks like we've done a good job with our queue, and there's one question left. So Carrie, we'll take the final one for today.

Operator

Operator

All right. Our last question comes from Aleksander Peterc of Société Générale CIB. Please go ahead. Aleksander Peterc - Société Générale SA (UK): Yes, hi. And thanks for squeezing me in. I'd just like to understand, because you mentioned on a previous quarterly call that you had several potential markets that could do better versus your guidance, and you mentioned the U.S. having momentum potentially, Japan, Korea rebounding, Mexico wholesale deal, and Indian LTE. So I'd see a lot of these actually materializing, so could you explain what holds you back from a little more positive outlook? Thanks.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Alex. So, but then on flip side, there are also weaker markets like Middle East and Africa. You've got the Eastern Europe comment that I made, but Europe all in all. China is probably even incrementally a little bit worse because China Unicom announced a big CapEx reduction, as you might have seen. Even though there's possible partial offsets in China Mobile potentially available. Yes, India tracking well, North America well, but there's also some sort of merger and acquisition headwind on the operative side that we need to watch. Japan and Korea are starting to rebound, but not yet in full rebound I would suggest. Southeast Asia, a potential rebound but not fully there. So as always, I don't think the market has changed, there are puts and takes. Broadly the market is the same in terms of primary market, low-single digit decline, as we talked about in Capital Markets Day.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

So thank you for your questions today, and now back to you, Rajeev, for closing remarks.

Rajeev Suri - Nokia Oyj

Management

Thanks, Matt and Kristian. And thanks again to all of you for joining. I'd like to close with just a few thoughts. We are pleased with the Q1 performance we delivered, and with the progress we are making to put our strategy into action, whether it is deepening and widening our footprint with communication service providers, launching new innovations, adding customers in new vertical markets, enhancing our software offering, stabilizing our top line, or progressing with our cost savings. But of course we're not complacent. We know we have some challenges in select business groups, and we're very focused on addressing those issues. And with the actions we have underway, I am confident that we can get those businesses back on track. With the integration of Alcatel-Lucent behind us, we are committed to building on that platform and to making 2017 a year of execution and performance. With that, thank you very much for your time and attention. Matt, back to you.

Matt Shimao - Nokia Oyj

Management

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference call. I would like to remind you that during the conference call today, we have made a number of forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. Actual results may therefore differ materially from the results currently expected. Factors that could cause such differences can be both, external, such as general, economic and industry conditions, as well as internal operating factors. We have identified these in more detail on pages 67 through 85 of our 2016 annual report on Form 20-F, our interim report for Q1 2017 issued today, as well as our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your line. Have a great day.