- Nokia announced it’s going to acquired Infinera at $6.65 per share
- The move has been approved by the boards of both companies.
- The acquisition is expected to accelerate telcom product development and respond faster to the evolving needs of the market
On 27.06.2024, Finnish telecom giant Nokia announced that it’s buying the California-headquartered optical networking vendor Infinera. The purchase was unanimously approved by the boards of both companies, and the deal is expected to close during H1 of 2026.
Infinera’s shares are valued at $6.65 per share for the purposes of the transaction, bringing the enterprise value of the deal up to $2.3 billion. Nokia’s Board of Directors has committed to fully offset the share capital dilution through additional buybacks of shares.
The two telecom vendors are at the forefront of the industry, with Infinera commandeering 8% of the optical network market. With 60% of Infinera’s sales coming from the US ($1.6 billion in 2023), the acquisition is widely expected to make Nokia’s position stronger in its North American market.
Moreover, the partnership between the two will boost Nokia’s Optical Networks scale by 75%, allowing them to accelerate product development and respond faster to the evolving demands of telecom consumers. According to Nokia’s investor presentation unveiled today (Friday June 28), the optical networking market is set to recover from 2025 onwards and grow at a CAGR of 5% to reach $16 billion by 2029, making the acquisition very timely.
Network Infrastructure Optimization
The acquisition, along with Nokia’s recent sale of Alcatel Submarine Networks to the French government, is expected to support the creation of a reconfigured Network Infrastructure. The infrastructure in question will be based on three pillars – Fixed Networks, IP Networks, and Optical Networks.
Innovations
Moreover, the resulting collaboration between the R&D in-house teams of the two means that the optical network market will soon see brand-new innovations in digital signal processing, silicon photonics, indium phosphide-based semiconductors, and PIC, to name a few. These innovations are expected to significantly boost Nokia’s market presence as an innovator with a diverse pool of talent.
Nokia investor report states that as a result of Nokia and Infinera combining their R&D forces, the combined optical business will make up 36% of total revenue, amounting to EUR 3.4 billion.
On Friday 26 June at 7 am BST, Nokia hosted a conference call to discuss the acquisition. You can watch it here.
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Kate Sukhanova Senior Statistics Contributor 
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