Nokia's Expertise Supports ANTEL's 5G Commercial Deployment

Per media reports, Nokia (HE:NOKIA) Corporation (NYSE:NOK) and ANTEL — Uruguay's government-owned telecommunications company — have successfully completed the installation of the first 5G commercial network in Latin America.

The rollout began in the Barra de Manantiales area, Maldonado Department, where the first 5G base stations are currently operational. The Finnish telecom equipment maker is committed to helping communications service providers in the seamless migration to the future of connectivity, with its end-to-end portfolio of network equipment, software and services.

Notably, Nokia has a long-standing technological partnership with ANTEL in delivering mobile, IP and optical services to the Uruguayan market. They are progressively working to deliver commercial deployment of the 5G radio network. Nokia is providing ANTEL with 5G radio network, optical transport and support services. The companies made the first 5G call in Uruguay using the 28 GHz frequency band.

Further, the technology company’s 5G portfolio is likely to provide ANTEL’s customers with high bandwidth and low latency services, alongside new applications in areas such as virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. Enterprises will also gain from various IoT vertical use cases enabled by 5G as it will help improve operational efficiency and user experiences while providing new revenue streams.

In this context, Nokia’s deal-win rate appears encouraging with remarkable success in the key 5G markets of the United States and China. It is continually expanding business into targeted, high-growth and high-margin vertical markets to address opportunities beyond its traditional markets. Rollout of next-generation 5G networks are expected to improve market conditions considerably through 2019 and beyond, auguring well for Nokia’s business development.

To stoke its competitive position, Nokia helps its customers to move away from an economy-of-scale network operating model to demand-driven operations by offering easy programmability and flexible automation needed to support dynamic operations, reduce complexity and increase efficiency.

Nokia continues to execute its strategy with progress in Nokia Software and expansion to select enterprise vertical markets. The company is also working to accelerate strategy execution, sharpen customer focus and reduce long-term costs. This, in turn, should help the company position itself for long-term 5G leadership and reaffirm commitment to 2020 non-IFRS operating margin between 12% and 16% and non-IFRS EPS in the range of €0.37-€0.42.

Backed by expanding technological collaborations with industry frontrunners, shares of Nokia have recorded an average return of 11.4% against the industry’s 1% decline in the past six months.

Currently, Nokia has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A few better-ranked stocks in the broader industry are T-Mobile US, Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS) , CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE:CTL) and Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

T-Mobile has long-term earnings growth expectation of 6%.

CenturyLink has long-term earnings growth expectation of 12.7%.

Juniper has long-term earnings growth expectation of 7.1%.

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