The timing of Nokia’s bulletins final week about persevering with European reductions and rising US investments is awkward – and raises questions, maybe, when thought of with parallel EU calls in Germany and France, the place it’s slicing jobs, for home-made sovereign EU infrastructure.
In sum – what to know:
EU cuts and a US pivot – Nokia notified lots of of R&D employees in Germany and France of redundancies simply days earlier than saying a serious restructure in New York and a $4 billion funding into US R&D and manufacturing.
Geopolitics and sovereignty – notionally, the timing jars with political calls in Berlin and Paris for Europe to scale back reliance on US tech – at the same time as US hyperscalers speed up eastwards to appease EU sovereignty guidelines.
Greater strategic questions – Nokia maintains its line about an “AI supercycle”, however the timing of constant European reductions and rising US investments is incongruous, and begs questions on its larger technique.
It was a wierd week for Nokia, final week. Right here’s a timeline, plus some broader market context; possibly there’s a solution to be a part of the dots, and possibly there isn’t.
Friday, November 14: employees in Germany and France, together with an important contingent engaged in its mental property and standardisation work with ETSI and 3GPP, are knowledgeable their roles will go. This contains round 700 folks at its workplace Munich, a subway experience from the European Patent Workplace (EPO). They’re pegged for redundancy in two waves, they’re knowledgeable – 300 in 2026, and the remaining 400 by 2030, which is, nominally, when many of the R&D work for 6G and ‘AI-native networks’ (cell and stuck / fibre) can be accomplished. One other 427 roles will go in France – coated in native press as Nokia’s “sluggish demise” within the nation – cut up between its workplaces in Massy in southern Paris (Nokia Bell Labs Paris Saclay) and Lannion in Brittany; each are additionally main R&D centres for the agency.
Wednesday, November 19: the agency holds its Capital Markets Day (CMD) in New York within the US, and proclaims a restructure that sees 5 enterprise models successfully reorganised into simply two (Cellular Infrastructure and Community Infrastructure; MI and NI) – in pursuit of an “AI supercycle”. A 3rd group of non-priority ‘portfolio companies’, that are (collectively) shedding cash, has additionally been hived off. These, it later emerges, are up on the market. They embody its Enterprise Campus Edge (ECE) division, which sells personal 4G/5G options (and contributes RAN gross sales to its RAN enterprise, to be newly integrated with its core-network software program and R&D ‘applied sciences’ models as a part of its new MI setup). Nokia has a management place in personal ‘campus’ networks by way of its ECE division.
Following its CMD technique replace, Nokia’s share worth (which spiralled way-upwards after a $1 billion funding from Nvidia in late October) slumps by about 15 p.c.
Friday November 21: Nokia proclaims a $4 billion funding within the US, made “in collaboration with the Trump administration”. The deal is for R&D, plus manufacturing, targeted on “AI-ready” cell, fastened entry, IP, optical, and knowledge centre networking, it says. The announcement goes out at 4pm CET – whereas the US market continues to be open, and whereas European journalists are about to log off for the weekend. Howard Lutnick, US secretary of commerce, calls it “one other Trump administration win for America”.
Nokia has been requested for a remark in regards to the timing, in addition to a few of the course of with employees in Europe.
Individually, and messing with the chronology…
Thursday November 18: a day earlier than Nokia proclaims (internally) it’s making cuts to its heritage R&D features in France and Germany, and eight days earlier than it proclaims (externally) that it’s to take a position closely in new R&D features within the US, French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Friedrich Merz attend a ‘summit on European digital sovereignty’ in Berlin to make Europe “extra reliant by itself expertise corporations” – and to “wean the bloc off American [tech]”.
As a footnote, we needs to be clear that Nokia’s job-cutting is a long-running saga, already. The agency stated final yr that it’s going to axe between 9,000 and 14,000 jobs by the tip of 2026; the most recent rounds, not communicated publicly, seem like delivering on the upper finish of its unique determine – equal to about 16 p.c of its whole workforce (round 86,000 workers, on the time). As others have reported, Nokia had greater than 100,000 employees as lately as 2018.
Neither is Nokia the one one in telecoms that’s slicing jobs, in fact. US operator Verizon has stated it’ll axe 15,000 employees, the most important single-round discount within the firm’s historical past; a few of these will go in its Verizon Enterprise and 5G Acceleration groups, reckon different stories. Cellular operators, specifically, are shedding jobs. There are many different examples, simply discovered. In the meantime Ericsson, the opposite aristocrat on European telecoms scene, stated in February final yr that it’s going to lower 8,5000 employees, equal to round eight p.c of its world workforce.
Furthermore, Nokia is just not the one one going west – if, certainly, that’s its technique. Ericsson can be making vital state-side investments, together with $150 million in a producing facility in Lewisville, in Texas. The location, referred to as USA 5G Sensible Manufacturing facility, is squarely pitched at appeasing the US push on home-grown telecoms techniques. “Merchandise are Made within the USA,” and compliant with the nation’s Construct America Purchase America Act (BABAA), declares a press observe, issued final yr. Ericsson’s enterprise wi-fi workforce, grown out of its acquisition of US agency Cradlepoint in late 2020, can be principally US-based.
Nokia has earlier, too, most clearly with the $2.3 billion acquisition of Infinera in June final yr. (The brand new US funding is an extension of this venture, Nokia has implied.) As effectively, the agency launched a devoted enterprise unit within the US final yr to ship personal mobile, edge computing, and different options to the federal authorities. The brand new unit, Nokia Federal Options, was “bolstered” by its acquisition of US-based integrator Fenix Group, billed as a personal 5G specialist within the protection sector. The sub-plot, once more, is about sovereign tech in mission-critical nationwide infrastructure. Sarcastically, maybe, Nokia’s transfer to place its ECE division up on the market suggests it’s quitting the mission-critical personal 5G sport – no less than as far as integration-heavy campus-style deployments go.
There can be different, most likely higher, examples of each agency’s US migrations.
However one other factor, as somebody astutely stated to RCR Wi-fi this week: there’s an opposite-ways narrative, too, as US cloud hyperscalers go east to appease European sovereignty guidelines. Their tempo has clearly accelerated over the previous few years – exhibiting a shift from conventional ‘EU-hosted areas’ to full sovereign-cloud fashions with EU-based governance.
In Might 2024, AWS introduced a €7.8 billion deal to create a ‘European sovereign cloud’, with its first area set to launch in Germany by the tip of 2025; by June, it had already established an EU-based company construction to function it. Google opened its first ‘sovereign cloud hub’ in Munich in November (2025), backed by an additional €5.5 billion funding to develop its knowledge centre footprint in Germany. Oracle can be increasing its ‘EU sovereign cloud’ with new areas all through 2025.
So Nokia’s twin strikes to scale back at house, in Europe, and develop overseas, within the US, is perhaps clearly seen within the context of broader trade pressures and geopolitics. On the identical time, its timing seems to be off, and the temper within the camp, no less than in its European R&D heartlands in Germany and France, is just not good, say a number of sources. Be part of the dots, and larger questions is perhaps requested.