While the RAN market is currently in a decline, rumors are swirling that Samsung is eyeing an acquisition of Nokia's struggling mobile business group. But it's unlikely Samsung and Nokia could turn lemons into lemonade with the integration of the companies' clashing RAN portfolios.
"It's not a great time for the RAN market, and it's not a great time to sell a RAN asset because you're not going to get a huge amount of money for it these days compared with what you might during a boom time," says Light Reading's Iain Morris. "There's a lot of reasons working against this [acquisition]."
He explains why there's speculation about a potential $10 billion takeover and shares insights on whether such an acquisition is likely to happen.
We also discuss why Samsung is interested in Nokia's RAN business and what the challenges and potential benefits are of an acquisition. And Iain explains how this could impact competitors and whether service providers would be receptive to this deal.
For a lightly edited transcript, please click the caption button in the video toolbar.
Here are a few topics we cover:
Background on Samsung's rumored acquisition of Nokia's mobile business group (00:57)
How the backlog of RAN product inventory has impacted the market (03:00)
The existential crisis over 5G (03:45)
AT&T's move to Ericsson created new business challenges for Nokia (04:09)
It's not a great time for the RAN market or a good time to sell a RAN asset (11:43)
Nokia's acquisition of Alcatel Lucent is a cautionary tale in cultural clashes (12:12)
Bringing together Samsung's and Nokia's RAN businesses could be messy (15:38)
Related:Samsung plus Nokia equals a big RAN headache