Profile: Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri could be one of the beneficiaries of Huawei’s regulatory woes
- Suri says there could be a “long term opportunity” for Nokia due to Huawei’s US regulatory problems
While the troubles besieging network gear and smartphone giant Huawei may be a headache for its Chinese management, for Nokia chief executive Rajeev Suri, they could provide the Finnish company with a much-needed boost.
At an annual shareholders’ meeting last week, Suri said that there could be a “long term opportunity” for Nokia due to Huawei’s US regulatory problems, which include restricting the company from buying American technology. “But more than that, it’s hard to say at this point,” he said.
Given the current impasse for Huawei after it was added to a US trade black list, investors may be taking another look at how, under Suri’s leadership, Nokia could start reeling in Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications gear company which last year raked in over US$100 billion in revenue.
The Indian-born, Singaporean executive, who has been chief of the Finnish firm since 2014, heads up one of the world’s top three telecommunications equipment firms. Like Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, Suri graduated from one of India’s top colleges for engineering, the Manipal Institute of Technology, and is now based in Espoo, Finland.
Suri, who has worked at Nokia for over two decades, is credited with turning Nokia and Siemens’ telecommunications equipment joint venture from a loss-making division into a subsidiary that now makes up 90 per cent of Nokia’s revenues.
Nokia, once the world’s largest mobile phone maker before its Symbian devices were overpowered by iPhones and Android-powered smartphones, is now No 2 in terms of telecommunications gear globally. It had a 17 per cent market share in 2018, behind Huawei’s 28 per cent and Ericsson’s 13 per cent, according to research firm Dell’Oro Group. All three are competing to secure commercial contracts for upcoming, superfast 5G mobile networks.
