Exane BNP upgrades Nokia to 'outperform' on AI growth pivot

** Exane BNP Paribas upgrades Finnish telecom firm Nokia NOKIA to "outperform" from "neutral" seeing AI growth pivot driving faster top-line growth

** While Nokia's mobile business faces the same challenges as peer Ericsson ERIC_A, the broker says it is more positive about Nokia's wireline exposure where AI datacentre investments could fuel faster growth

** With the acquisition of Infinera , the brokerage expects the share of hyperscaler revenue to grow beyond the current 5% of group revenue

** It sees the Network Infrastructure (NI) segment growing revenue 3% faster than consensus forecasts for 2026

** Exane BNP expects Nokia's Capital Markets Day, due on Nov. 19, to lay out a path to earnings expansion driven by a pick-up in NI growth and improvement profitability at Mobile Networks unit

** Out of 28 analysts that cover the Nokia share, 13 rate it "strong buy"/"buy", nine rate "hold", and six rate "sell"/strong sell"