Nokia’s Strategic Pivot: A Catalyst for Growth in the Private Network Ecosystem

Nokia’s 2025 Capital Markets Day announcements are more than just another corporate re-org. They mark a strategic shift that could unlock real opportunity for the private LTE and 5G ecosystem.

By moving its Enterprise Campus Edge business and several related activities into a new “Portfolio Business” unit, and by pivoting investment and narrative toward AI infrastructure and hyperscaler markets, Nokia is opening space that SIs and MSPs are well-positioned to occupy.

This isn’t a press-release-level tweak. It’s a signal about where Nokia wants to compete hardest over the coming decade: high-growth, AI-driven infrastructure and telco-scale networks – not the high-touch, project-intensive work of designing and operating enterprise private networks.

For partners who specialize in that work, the implications are significant.

The Strategic De-Emphasis That Changes Everything

Nokia has created a Portfolio Business unit that includes:

• Enterprise Campus Edge (ex-Cloud and Network Services)
• Fixed Wireless Access CPE (ex-Network Infrastructure)
• Site Implementation & outside plant services (ex-Network Infrastructure)
• Microwave Radio (ex-Mobile Networks)

Collectively, these businesses represent close to a billion euros of revenue and have historically operated with modest or negative profitability. The fact that Nokia was operating these segments at a loss does not mean the business itself is unprofitable. It simply means Nokia was unprofitable in operating that business.

A global telecom giant is not engineered for the cost structure required by localized, high-touch services. Their massive overhead and global sales machinery devour margins. A specialized, regional SI or MSP, with a focus on specific vertical market expertise (e.g., manufacturing, logistics, utilities), can easily acquire these existing customer contracts and, due to their optimized operating model, turn that €100 million loss into significant profit.

The million-dollar question is: who is the right fit to acquire these customer contracts and NaaS product assets from Nokia?

By the way, Nokia has not announced that it is abandoning private networks altogether. Its radios, core software, and standards portfolio will continue to underpin many private cellular deployments. What is changing is the role Nokia wants to play in the value chain.

Rather than acting as the primary architect and integrator of enterprise private networks, Nokia is signaling that these high-touch, project-heavy activities are no longer a core growth priority. In other words, Nokia wants to sell the building blocks, not run the construction site.

Why This Pivot Is Good News for the Private Network Market

The single most important takeaway for the private 5G market is that Nokia is removing the structural anchor that was holding back ecosystem growth: the misaligned incentives and operational inefficiency inherent in a global product vendor trying to support a highly fragmented services market.

For years, the private network market has lived with a structural tension: the biggest suppliers of equipment also wanted to own the customer relationship and the solution. That model created friction between telco vendors, SIs, MSPs, and end customers, and it held back the ecosystem.

When private networks sat as a side initiative inside large telco RAN businesses, they faced several predictable problems:

• Solution complexity emerged when general-purpose telco equipment was retrofitted for enterprise use cases, requiring extensive customization rather than purpose-built functionality.
• Inconsistent commitment levels from vendors, who were primarily focused on multi-billion-dollar telco contracts, meant that private network customers often received secondary attention and resources.
• Channel conflict arose as vendors attempted to serve enterprises directly while simultaneously working through system integrator partners, creating market confusion.

With Nokia reducing its direct focus on this segment, many of these structural issues will start to ease. The true innovation in Private 5G is emerging from smaller more aggressive dedicated RAN, core, and players.

The SI and MSP Opportunity – Creating Strategic Freedom from Monolithic Solutions

SIs always possessed the technical capability to deploy best-of-breed solutions. However, the economic reality made it hard to execute this freedom consistently in private 5G.

When a major vendor like Nokia had a vested interest in selling a complete, single-vendor solution, they incentivized the channel (through rebates, margin tiers, and support priority) to bundle as much of their stack as possible. This was the path of least resistance for both the vendor and the SI.

Nokia’s pivot creates strategic freedom by removing the economic pressure to sell monolithic solutions.

Now, SI’s strategic goal is no longer tied to the vendor’s quota incentives, but purely to the best technical fit for the customer. This shift positions SIs and MSPs as the primary architects and operators of private LTE and 5G solutions. Rather than simply reselling vendor-packaged offerings, these partners can now:

• Develop differentiated solutions by selecting best-of-breed components from multiple vendors without being locked into a single equipment manufacturer’s roadmap or constraints.
• Capture higher margins throughout the lifecycle by owning design, deployment, integration, and managed services rather than simply marking up hardware.
• Build direct enterprise relationships without vendor channel conflict, establishing themselves as trusted advisors for connectivity strategy rather than equipment resellers.
• Create recurring revenue streams through comprehensive managed services, becoming the long-term operational partner rather than a deployment contractor.

Economically, this makes sense. Private network deployments require deep expertise and ongoing management – work that fits naturally into the economics of a capable SI/MSP. As capex-driven vendor projects give way to long-lived service contracts, more of the value pool shifts toward partners.

The Standards Advantage

Crucially, this shift is occurring at the same time the technology and standards have matured.

Early private LTE and 5G efforts often relied on proprietary integrations, vendor-specific APIs, and immature device ecosystems. It was hard for partners to mix and match components without incurring enormous integration costs and risk.

That is changing fast:

• 3GPP standards for private networks are more mature, with clear profiles for enterprises and non-public networks.
• Device and module ecosystems have expanded, with more options for industrial sensors, handhelds, routers, and gateways that support private bands and features.
• Core and RAN solutions are increasingly modular and cloud-native, making it easier to integrate them into existing IT/OT environments.
• Integration patterns and reference architectures have emerged, reducing the risk for partners building on top of multiple vendors.

In other words, the timing is good. The withdrawal of direct vendor competition coincides with sufficient standards maturity and ecosystem depth for SIs and MSPs to build robust, interoperable private networks without being forced into a single-vendor box.

Conclusion: The New Reality of Outcome Delivery

Nokia’s pivot is not a failure of the private 5G market; it’s the sudden, necessary abandonment of the old playbook by a global giant. It’s a strategic move to focus on high-scale product growth, but its most important consequence is clarifying the roles within the ecosystem.

The market is transitioning from vendor pilot programs to a partner-driven operational reality where specialized partners, now free from the structural complexity of their supplier, are best positioned to deliver innovation and profit.

For enterprises, this is not the end of private networks. It’s the transition from an early market dominated by vertically integrated telco vendors to a more mature ecosystem in which specialized partners design, deliver, and run best of breed solutions for critical connectivity.

This is the ultimate maturation signal the private 5G industry has been waiting for.