Jan 29 (Reuters) - Finland's Nokia NOKIA.HE said its chair Sari Baldauf would step down and proposed Timo Ihamuotila as her replacement, after the telecom gear maker met quarterly earnings expectations on Thursday, reaping gains from its push into the artificial intelligence space.

Comparable operating profit fell 3% year-on-year to 1.05 billion euros ($1.26 billion) in the final quarter of 2025. That was in line with the average estimate of 1.01 billion euros from analysts polled by LSEG.

Nokia is carrying out one of its biggest restructuring drives since it sold its iconic mobile phone business more than a decade ago, banking on AI and data centre demand to offset weak spending and contract losses in the 5G field.

Last year, Nokia appointed former Intel executive Justin Hotard as its CEO to speed up the transition. Still, a profit warning tied to U.S. import tariffs and a weaker dollar have hit the margins, mounting pressure for deeper cost cuts.

Fourth-quarter net sales reached 6.12 billion euros, meeting analysts' forecast.

Nokia expects comparable operating profit in 2026 to come in between 2 billion euros and 2.5 billion euros

($1 = 0.8345 euros)