By Supantha Mukherjee
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Nokia on Monday won its first 5G radio contract in China, securing a share in one of China Mobile’s three new 5G contracts, while Nordic rival Ericsson lost market share after getting caught up in a political spat.
As is customary, Chinese companies took the lion’s share of the order. Huawei took a majority share in all three contracts, followed by ZTE, according to a document https://b2b.10086.cn/b2b/main/viewNoticeContent.html?noticeBean.id=773468 published by China Mobile.
Ericsson had been expected to be awarded a lower share of China’s 5G roll-out after Sweden decided to exclude Chinese vendors from its own networks.
Nokia, which didn’t secure any 5G radio contracts in China last year, got a 10% share in one of the three contracts, while Ericsson got 9.6% of another contract.
China’s other two largest telecom operators – China Telecom and China Unicom – will soon announce winners of the second phase of the 5G contracts.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, European Technology & Telecoms Correspondent, based in Stockholm; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
