Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia said that a healthy third operator will be good for the telecom industry and consumers in India, but added that if you miss a technology generation change, it will be very hard to catch with bigger telecom operators.

“What we hear about BSNL is that the narrative is changing now. The government has made the decision to go back and invest. .A healthy third is very good. But, the government and the regulator have to make that decision. I don’t have the capital to make it work. A healthy third I think is good for the industry and consumer as well,” Nokia Chief Strategy and Technology Officer Nishant Batra told ET in an interaction at the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress.

He said that Vodafone Idea isn’t a publicly listed company, and, “I shouldn’t say what they should do,” but added that it is very hard to catch up if you miss the technology transition.

Nokia is currently supplying 5G equipment to Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. It was previously providing just the wireline technology to the Mukesh Ambani-led telco, but has managed to bag a wireless deal from the telco along with Ericsson and Samsung.

Nokia India sales increased by 25% in the December 2022 quarter to 1.29 billion euros from 1.03 billion euros a year ago. India was the second latest market for Nokia during the December 2022 quarter on account of rapid rollout of the 5G network.

“In India, we have taken greater market share. But, the point is not to reduce the telco business, so that the enterprise looks bigger. The point is to keep growing by taking more shares and making sure that we have diversification,” Batra said.

The senior executive said that Nokia is ready to go as fast as India wants it to go to support the 5G network roll out by Indian telecom operators.

“We’re ready. We want to go as fast as India wants to go on 5G rollout. And, we started to see traffic coming up.”

He said that Indian telecom operators have now started discussion to use millimetre wave wave spectrum. “The discussion is now how this spectrum can be the next level of growth in India for applications around home and enterprise usage.”

To monetise 5G, Batra said that India will have to find its own use cases and should not rely on the global enterprise use cases.

“The use cases in the West may start from productivity, but the use cases in India may start from safety. Because you’re not trying to get cheap robots to replace expensive labour in India. So, maybe the use cases will start with safety,” Batra said.

Nokia last week redesigned its logo for the first time in decades to distance itself from its public image as a phone company and to focus on aggressive growth.

Batra said that with the rebranding exercise and logo change, Nokia wants to be seen as a tech company instead of a telecom company.

“We don’t want us to be restrictive to telecom only. The fastest growing piece of our business is non telco. It’s an area of aspiration for us. So we want to make sure that the brand allows us to reflect the position of Nokia, which is a tech player,” Batra said, adding that Nokia had seen 22% growth in its non-telco business.

“Non telco for us means selling to cloud players and web scalars. We announced a deal with Microsoft. We are selling directly to enterprise system integrators. We had a big announcement with Kyndryl. We are selling to federal governments. So, non telco businesses are a big lever for growth,” he added.

India has become the third largest country for Nokia for engagement in 6G standardisation. “India is the third largest market for us in terms of 6G work. The team has grown a lot and will grow further,” Batra said.

The company has started hiring top talents in its Bengaluru office with competence in 6G standardisation and India has become third largest country for Nokia for engagement in 6G standardisation.