Nokia forks out $2.3 billion for Infinera

Details: Manny Pham; Category: Vendors; 01 July 2024; 16284 views

Nokia acquired Infinera for US$2.3 billion to increase its scale in optical networks, a move to bolster future products and improve its profit line.

Nokia said in a statement it sees “significant opportunity” in merging to “improve scale and profitability” and accelerating development of new products and solutions. It added the acquisition increases its exposure to web scale customers, a fast growing segment of the market, the vendor noted.

The Finnish vendor and Infinera made a combined €3.4 billion in revenues in 2023. It was also noted by Nokia that the acquistion will improve its optical scale in the US and complement strong positions in APAC, EMEA and Latin America.

Nokia president and CEO Pekka Lundmark said: “In 2021 we increased our organic investment in Optical Networks with a view to improving our competitiveness. That decision has paid off and has delivered improved customer recognition, strong sales growth and increased profitability.

“We believe now is the right time to take a compelling inorganic step to further expand Nokia’s scale in optical networks. The combined businesses have a strong strategic fit given their highly complementary customer, geographic and technology profiles.”

Federico Guillén, President of Network Infrastructure at Nokia added: “This acquisition will further strengthen the optical pillar of our business, expand our growth opportunities across all our target customer segments and improve our operating margin.”