By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Finland's Nokia reported stronger than expected fourth-quarter adjusted operating profit and sales on Thursday, helped by higher demand for telecoms gear from mobile operators in North America and India, and was upbeat about 2025 prospects.

Shares of the telecoms gear maker were up 3% at 0840 GMT, outperforming a 0.4% rise in Europe's STOXX 600 index.

Nokia's quarterly net sales rose 10% to 5.98 billion euros ($6.2 billion), beating analysts' estimate of 5.74 billion euros in an LSEG poll.

The company said sales at its network infrastructure business climbed 17% due to a strong recovery in demand from communication service providers, notably in North America.

"What we have seen previously is that when the markets turn, the North American market turns first, both up and down," CEO Pekka Lundmark told Reuters, adding that he expects improving market trends to persist into 2025.

The company expects full-year profit of between 1.9 billion euros and 2.4 billion euros, compared with an estimate of 2.13 billion euros on LSEG Workspace.

Nokia and its Nordic rival Ericsson have seen double-digit growth in North America due to a rebound in demand after years of weakness. Demand from Indian clients, which dropped significantly after rapid growth in 2023, is also recovering.

To tap the artificial intelligence boom, Nokia agreed to buy Infinera in a $2.3 billion deal last year to gain from the billions of dollars in investment pouring into data centres such as the $500 billion Stargate project backed by OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle.

"We have interest in all data centres and assuming that the Stargate project will deliver, it will be an exciting market opportunity for us," Lundmark said.

He now expects the Infinera deal to close by the end of the first quarter, instead of by the end of the first half of the year.

Comparable earnings before interest and tax rose to 1.14 billion euros, beating the 960 million euros expected by analysts in the LSEG poll.

($1 = 0.9597 euros)