Ericsson has won a 3% share of a joint 5G radio contract offered by China Telecom and China Unicom.
Reuters reported that Ericsson had won the small share while Nokia was expected to miss out entirely, in a repeat of the pattern established in April this year when the operators selected their 5G supplier.
In this latest development, the majority of the contracts were awarded to Chinese vendors including Huawei, ZTE and state-backed Datang Telecom.
Neither European vendor missed out on China Mobile’s 5G tenders, with the market leader providing contracts to both. Nokia won a larger share of these, lifting its fortunes somewhat in China.
Sweden’s ban on the use of Huawei equipment for 5G network build-outs has resulted in Ericsson muting its expectations for the Chinese market, with the vendor’s EVP for business area networks Fredrik Jejdling telling MWL that it would be “prudent to assume we’re going to get a lower market share in mainland China”.
