Nokia’s Two-Speed Reality: AI Orders Are Booming While the Stock Craters
Published on 07/27/2026 at 12:14 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The numbers coming out of Nokia tell two completely different stories. In one, the Finnish network equipment maker is riding a structural wave of AI infrastructure demand, with its cloud and data-centre business doubling revenues and pulling in a record €2.8 billion in orders. In the other, the stock has shed nearly half its value from a June peak, the dividend is being paid into a maelstrom of selling, and the share price is now trading barely above its 200-day moving average.
On Monday, Nokia shares opened at €8.15, up a modest 1% from Friday’s close. That small gain belies the scale of the recent rout: the stock has fallen 28.48% over the past month and sits 45.56% below the 12-month high of €14.97 reached on 3 June. The 50-day moving average of €11.57 is now 29.54% above the current price — a textbook gap for a momentum-driven correction.
A Dividend Paid Into a Storm
The timing of Nokia’s latest dividend payment has added a technical wrinkle to an already volatile picture. Monday marked the ex-dividend date for the second of four planned quarterly tranches, with the board having approved a €0.04 per share payout on 23 July. The record date is 28 July, and the cash will land in accounts on 6 August.
The annual general meeting on 9 April authorised the board to distribute up to €0.14 per share in total for the 2025 financial year. After the July tranche, €0.06 remains. The first €0.04 instalment was approved on 23 April and paid on 7 May. In normal circumstances, a dividend of this size would be a footnote. But with the stock down 46.16% from its June high and the 14-day relative strength index at 29.5 — deep into oversold territory — the ex-date feels more like an afterthought than an event.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nokia?
The Real Story Is in the Order Book
The disconnect between Nokia’s operational performance and its share price is striking. In the second quarter, the AI and Cloud segment posted net sales of €446 million, up 105% year-on-year. The driver was demand for data-centre interconnect solutions and so-called scale-across fabrics — the high-speed optical networking that links massive computing clusters together.
Order intake in the segment hit €2.8 billion, with roughly half expected to convert into revenue within 12 months. Customers are locking in capacity early in a supply-constrained market. Much of this momentum comes from Nokia’s optical division, where the acquisition of Infinera and deeper vertical integration have given the company the optical infrastructure needed to bridge the gap between surging AI compute power and the networks that support it.
CEO Justin Hotard has framed the growth as structural rather than speculative. He recently said he is “less worried” about an AI bubble, arguing that demand is strong and supply remains tight.
Why the Market Is Selling Anyway
If the fundamentals are so solid, why is the stock getting hammered? The answer lies in the gap between narrative and valuation. Nokia’s transformation from a legacy telecom equipment supplier into an AI infrastructure play was so enthusiastically embraced that the stock priced in years of flawless execution. When the company reported quarterly results that beat earnings expectations but also highlighted chip shortages, a weak legacy telecom business, and lingering doubts about the speed of the turnaround, the market recalibrated sharply.
The annualised 30-day volatility now stands at 66.56%, a sign of just how jittery trading has become. UBS cut its price target to €9.65 on 24 July while maintaining a neutral rating, reflecting the cautious tone that has replaced the earlier euphoria.
Nokia at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
A Chart That Tells Two Stories
What makes Nokia’s current situation so unusual is that both narratives are true. The pivot away from smartphones and mobile hardware toward optical and AI cloud infrastructure is real and measurable in the order books. But the stock first ran far ahead of that story — and has now, in a matter of weeks, fallen well behind it.
The 200-day moving average of €7.86 offers a technical anchor. At €8.15, the stock is just 3.72% above that level, suggesting the medium-term uptrend remains intact. What has been stripped away is the euphoric premium that was piled on top in June. With a market capitalisation of €45.90 billion, Nokia is no longer being priced purely as a telecom equipment maker. Part of that valuation reflects a bet on AI infrastructure — with all the sentiment swings that label brings.
Whether the current sell-off represents a healthy reset after an overheated rally or the beginning of a broader revaluation of AI-linked industrial stocks is a question the market has not yet answered. For now, Nokia’s share price is caught between two realities: a business that is genuinely transforming and a stock that is still trying to figure out which version of itself investors will ultimately believe.
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