Nokia Insider Bets €1.1M on AI Shift as Q1 Network Revenue Surges Past €1.8B

Nokia's chief development officer buys €1.1 million in shares amid a 7.6% pullback from a 52-week peak, as the company pivots to AI infrastructure and sets aggressive profit targets.

Nokia’s top technology officer has put €1.1 million of his own money on the line just as the stock pulls back from a record-breaking run. Chief Development Officer Konstanty Owczarek snapped up shares on May 24 and again on May 26, spending a combined €1.1 million. The second purchase alone was worth €600,000. For market watchers, the timing is striking: the stock had already more than tripled from its August 2025 low and was coming off a 134% year-to-date surge.

The buying spree came as the share price retreated from its 52-week peak of €14.14, hit on May 26. By Thursday, Nokia closed at €13.07 in Helsinki — a 7.6% slide from that high. The stock shed roughly 1.7% over the prior seven sessions. Technicians point to a classic overbought correction: Nokia had traded more than 35% above its 50-day moving average and roughly 100% above its 200-day line. Its relative strength index cooled to 52 (or 52.1, depending on the data feed), down from overbought territory in May.

The catalyst behind the earlier rally is clear. Nokia is reinventing itself from a legacy telecom equipment maker into an artificial-intelligence infrastructure supplier. On May 21, it opened an AI-network innovation lab in Sunnyvale, California, where it tests architectures for AI training and real-time inference alongside partners AMD, Lenovo, and Supermicro. The strategy is already showing in the numbers: first-quarter 2026 network infrastructure revenue climbed to €1.83 billion from €1.64 billion a year earlier, while comparable operating profit jumped 54% to €281 million.

That transformation began with the February 2025 acquisition of Infinera, which added optical networking technology critical for data centers. Then, late last year, Nvidia invested $1 billion to help develop AI-RAN technology, tying Nokia’s future directly to the AI boom. Under CEO Justin Hotard, the group has slimmed down to two main segments — AI and cloud networking — and set ambitious profit targets: €2.0 to €2.5 billion in comparable operating income for 2026, rising to €2.7 to €3.2 billion by 2028.

Analyst opinions remain split. Morgan Stanley raised its price target to €14 and kept an “Overweight” rating. Deutsche Bank rates the stock a “Buy” with a more conservative target of €8.50. The broader consensus, however, is less enthusiastic: eleven analysts see an average target of $12.90 — below Nokia’s current €13.07 level. Their ratings, collected on April 29, have not yet caught up with the rally that has pushed the stock well above that figure. Nokia itself expects to land slightly above the midpoint of its 2026 profit guidance, and it forecasts combined growth of 18% to 20% in its optical and IP networking segment.

The massive spending wave by cloud hyperscalers — expected to top $700 billion in the near term — provides a tailwind, but some investors remain cautious after the rapid ascent. The insider purchases and institutional upgrades offer a counterbalance. The next hard data point comes on July 23, when Nokia reports second-quarter earnings. Until then, the question is whether AI demand can sustain the valuation — or whether the stock will drift back toward what analysts have been willing to pay for it.