What's the Story? No lemonade made from a Samsung/Nokia team up

Light Reading's Iain Morris explains why there's speculation about a potential $10 billion takeover by Samsung of Nokia's RAN business and whether such an acquisition is likely to happen.

Kelsey Ziser, Iain Morris

September 11, 2024

At a Glance

  • 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)
  • Bringing together Samsung's and Nokia's RAN businesses could be messy (15:38)

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

About the Authors

Kelsey Ziser

Senior Editor, Light Reading

Kelsey is a senior editor at Light Reading, co-host of the Light Reading podcast, and host of the "What's the story?" podcast.

Her interest in the telecom world started with a PR position at Connect2 Communications, which led to a communications role at the FREEDM Systems Center, a smart grid research lab at N.C. State University. There, she orchestrated their webinar program across college campuses and covered research projects such as the center's smart solid-state transformer.

Kelsey enjoys reading four (or 12) books at once, watching movies about space travel, crafting and (hoarding) houseplants.

Kelsey is based in Raleigh, N.C.

Iain Morris

International Editor, Light Reading

Iain Morris joined Light Reading as News Editor at the start of 2015 -- and we mean, right at the start. His friends and family were still singing Auld Lang Syne as Iain started sourcing New Year's Eve UK mobile network congestion statistics. Prior to boosting Light Reading's UK-based editorial team numbers (he is based in London, south of the river), Iain was a successful freelance writer and editor who had been covering the telecoms sector for the past 15 years. His work has appeared in publications including The Economist (classy!) and The Observer, besides a variety of trade and business journals. He was previously the lead telecoms analyst for the Economist Intelligence Unit, and before that worked as a features editor at Telecommunications magazine. Iain started out in telecoms as an editor at consulting and market-research company Analysys (now Analysys Mason).

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