Nokia’s AI Pivot Wins Orange Belgium, SAP, and Google Deals — But a 22% Monthly Drop Tests Investor Faith

Nokia shares closed Friday with a solid bounce, gaining 5.72% to €11.18 on one exchange and 5.28% to €11.16 on another, after the Finnish telecom equipment maker announced a multiyear contract to supply Orange Belgium with optical transport technology. The deal, which makes Nokia the sole vendor for modernizing Orange’s transport network, is the latest in a string of wins tied to the company’s aggressive push into AI infrastructure and cloud-native networking.

The Orange Belgium project will deploy Nokia’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch platform and the AI‑driven WaveSuite automation software, handling data rates from 1G to over 400G. It is designed to meet the combined demands of 5G, AI data centers, and quantum‑safe encryption. That announcement came alongside a flurry of partnerships in late June: a multiyear agreement with SAP and Microsoft to embed AI into Nokia’s core processes via RISE with SAP on Azure, and an expanded collaboration with Google Cloud that brings Gemini AI models into Nokia’s Autonomous Network portfolio to automatically detect and resolve network faults.

Yet despite Friday’s rally, the stock remains deep in the red on a month‑to‑date basis. Over the past 30 trading days Nokia has shed 22.37% of its value, pulling back sharply from the June 3 record high of €14.97. The current price sits below the 50‑day moving average of €12.01, though it is still well above the 200‑day average of €7.52. The 14‑day relative strength index stands at 43.6, a neutral reading that suggests neither extreme fear nor greed.

The long‑term picture remains robust: the stock has more than tripled from its 52‑week low of €3.49 in August 2025, with a year‑to‑date gain of 100.43% and a 12‑month advance of 155.67%. That stellar run has been fuelled by Nokia’s painful but deliberate pivot away from its traditional telecom operator base into high‑growth segments like AI infrastructure and defence. Revenue has climbed to roughly €20 billion over the past twelve months, but the net margin has shrunk to just 4% — less than half the three‑year average of 8% — as the company absorbs heavy costs to capture market share in new areas.

Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nokia?

Institutional investors are taking notice — but not always in the same direction. FMR LLC, the parent of Fidelity, reduced its voting rights in Nokia below the 5% reporting threshold in late June, a move that can stir unease during already volatile periods. At the same time, analysts have been lifting their targets. Jefferies raised its price objective from €10.70 to €13.80 on June 30, citing rising interest from big cloud providers in Nokia’s optical portfolio. Bank of America had already moved its target to €14.40 on June 3, betting on momentum in data‑center and fiber‑optic demand.

Nokia’s Q1 results provided ammunition for the optimists: AI and cloud orders hit €1 billion, with year‑over‑year revenue growth of 49% in that segment, which now contributes 8% of group sales. To support that expansion, the company committed $30 million to expand its semiconductor testing facility in Pennsylvania on June 16, part of a broader $4 billion investment plan for AI‑capable network R&D and manufacturing in the United States. In another sign of its defence pivot, Nokia Federal Solutions secured contracts from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

The next major checkpoint comes on July 23, 2026, when Nokia reports second‑quarter earnings. Investors will be watching closely to see whether the pace of AI and cloud orders from the first quarter can be sustained — and whether the margin sacrifice that comes with the transformation will eventually be rewarded with the scale that makes the restructuring pay off.