Nokia says it has moved ahead of Huawei in 5G orders – Reuters
What happened: Finnish telecommunications company Nokia said it has secured 42 commercial orders for the next-generation of wireless networks, surpassing its Chinese rival Huawei. Customers are increasingly looking to Nokia to equip their 5G core networks, either to have dual sourcing for the most sensitive parts of their networks or to replace existing providers, said Nokia director Federico Guillen. Huawei has secured 40 5G contracts around the world by the end of March, according to the company while Swedish 5G competitor Ericsson has publicly announced 19 contracts, of which eight are live.
Why it’s important: Nokia and Ericsson are expected to benefit from a wounded Huawei, which faces trouble on a global scale. The United States and Australia have banned Huawei equipment from their 5G network rollouts, while New Zealand and the UK have limited Huawei’s participation in major 5G networks. That leaves the two European companies a huge market gap to fill. However, they may expect less 5G market share in China than what they had during the country’s 4G rollout. In an initial bid for 5G equipment by China’s largest carrier China Mobile, Ericsson was only allocated 5% of the tender and Nokia gained none; the bulk of the bid went to Huawei and its domestic rival ZTE.