Indian telecom providers have finished rolling out their 5G networks nationwide, but according to a senior corporate executive, Nokia anticipates a significant increase in equipment demand in 2024–2025. Fixed wireless access network proliferation will bring the Indian telecom industry into the second phase of 5G network implementation, Nokia India head of mobile networks business Tarun Chhabra said at the India Mobile Congress.

"India's requirement is still going to be substantial in 2024-25, then our factories will be fully loaded with India plus some exports", Chhabra said. Nokia has recorded multi-fold growth in its telecom gear business in India on account of rapid 5G network deployment.

In the third quarter financial report, Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark said the company benefited greatly from 5G rollouts in India, where net sales more than doubled annually. However, when the deployment pace began to normalise, sales volume considerably decreased sequentially. Although Chhabra anticipates that the country's growing momentum will continue, he stated that Nokia will increase its exports from India if demand declines.

Fixed wireless Access (FWA) is one big thing that can actually require a lot of data thrusting and then operators will have to actually deploy more networks. I would say this is Phase one. Once there is a new use case coming up, more subscribers being added, then there's going to be more demand for network capacity, which will also impact the second phase of 5G deployment, Chhabra said.