Finnish telco Nokia has seen a 32 percent decline in its operating profit in Q2 2024 from the same period last year.

Nokia’s operating profit declined from €619 million ($676m) in Q2 2023 to €423 million ($423m) in Q2 2024.

Nokia said sales of its products in India surged by 333 percent last year during a peak of 5G deployment but had now fallen back down. This accounted for three-quarters of the decline, the company said.

In a call with investors, CFO Marco Wiren said there “was a softness across most markets,” but modest growth in North America.

The company forecasted a demand recovery in the second half of 2024. Rival Ericsson also experienced similar losses and predicted sales normalizing this year.

The company’s stock price on the New York Stock Exchange is still up more than ten percent from three months ago, when it launched a round of share buybacks, but has fallen seven percent this past week.

The telco acquired optical networking vendor Infinera for $2.3 billion at the end of last month.

The news comes in the wake of Nokia’s decision to sell its submarine cable unit, Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), to the French State.

Once the sale has been completed, Nokia’s Network Infrastructure Business Group will comprise three units: Fixed Networks, IP Networks, and Optical Networks. The deal is expected to reduce the group's net sales by approximately €1 billion ($1bn) but will increase its operating profit margin by 100 to 150 basis points.

Nokia also recently announced an agreement to deploy Telecom Egypt’s 5G network.