5G Order Competition: HUAWEI, Ericsson And NOKIA

With the large-scale construction of 5G infrastructure in 2020, the competition of global communication equipment providers is becoming more and more intense.

Local time on January 9th, NOKIA issued a statement on the official website announcing that it had signed 63 Commercial 5G contracts worldwide.

NOKIA said the 63 commercial contracts do not include other types of 5G agreements, such as trial, pilot or demonstration of pay networks. NOKIA said that if these agreements were included, the total number of 5G agreements would exceed 100.

Since 2019, HUAWEI, ZTE and Ericsson have also been drying up their performance.

In mid October last year, HUAWEI announced that the company had signed more than 60 5G commercial contracts with the world's leading carriers and sent about 400000 5G Massive MIMO AAU to the global market. By December, HUAWEI supported more than 35 5G commercial networks worldwide.

According to data released by ZTE in November last year, 35 5G commercial contracts were obtained.

Looking at Ericsson, as of December 2019, Ericsson signed 78 5G commercial agreements and contracts worldwide, and has provided equipment for 24 officially run 5G commercial networks.

Next, the 5G contract will continue. In the era of 5G, the discourse power of Chinese enterprises has further improved, and has entered the field of key standard formulation. With the opening of 5G in 2020, the competition among equipment manufacturers is becoming more and more intense.

Four powers contend for hegemony

At present, the competition between European manufacturers and Chinese enterprises is the most intense among global telecom equipment providers. In 2019, as a commercial era of 5G, every family has begun to move on.

First look at the NOKIA that wants to turn over with 5G. The customers who cooperate with it include AT&T, KDDI, Korea Telecom, LG Uplus, NTT Docomo, O2, SK SK, Softbank group, company, company, company, Italian company, and company. These operators mainly come from the United States, South Korea, Japan and some European countries.

NOKIA also said that it is the only 5G technology provider selected by all four leading operators in the United States, three leading operators in South Korea and all three major operators in Japan, and the company has more than 2000 patents for 5G.

After selling the mobile phone business in the first two years, NOKIA turned to 5G business. In a previous interview, Bhaskar Gorti, head of NOKIA software, said that the 5G cycle consisted of several different parts of the Gorti. NOKIA takes the lead in software development, Internet of things deployment and wireless access.

Ericsson's actions last year were frequent in Sweden. In the 5G market, many carriers such as Qatar telecom operator Ooredoo, Saudi Telecom STC, Russian operator Tele2, Teli Telecom, Danish telecom operator TDC, Switzerland Telecom, South Korea Telecom, Vodafone and Italy TIM chose to cooperate with Ericsson.

At the same time, the cooperation in the Chinese market is constantly on the one hand, closely linked with domestic operators and terminal manufacturers. On the other hand, it has been exploring landing scenes, such as Ericsson's cooperation with hex and Shandong Unicom in November last year.

Compared with the above two old enterprises, HUAWEI and ZTE have more complete industrial chains and wider coverage in 5G. From the chip, terminal and system, the end-to-end 5G solutions with their own characteristics have been formed. In addition to 5G base stations, HUAWEI and ZTE's terminal products have also been listed, including a variety of 5G phones and 5G CPE.

According to the data released by HUAWEI, the shipment volume of HUAWEI 5G base station module increased by 300% after May 2019, from 100 thousand in May to 400 thousand at the end of October. In September, HUAWEI also delivered the 5G Standalone independent networking mode from the beginning to the end. Despite being blocked by the United States, HUAWEI said at the end of September that it had started producing 5G base stations without American components. A HUAWEI insider told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that HUAWEI has been in the lead for 2-3 years in some core components of the base station.

At present, HUAWEI has carried out 5G cooperation with many other countries, including Switzerland, Britain, Monaco, France, Malaysia, Russia and so on.

The resurgence of the market is also revival, and Telef, Nica, Orange, WindTre, Austria Hutchison Drei and other operators to cooperate. China's huge domestic market is also opening up. In 2020, China's base stations had hundreds of thousands of demand, and the global demand was as high as millions.

5G reshape equipment business?

In the process of 1G to 5G communication intergenerational replacement, the leading position of equipment makers has also changed several times. How will the 5G era shuffle?

In the era of 1G, led by Motorola and AT&T in the United States, the European enterprises in the 2G era, Ericsson and NOKIA became giants. After the 3G and 4G era, Chinese enterprises began to rise, forming the pattern of HUAWEI, Ericsson, NOKIA and ZTE as the leading role. Over the years, HUAWEI has been sitting firmly in the first place. A domestic operator told the twenty-first Century business news reporter that HUAWEI, NOKIA, ZTE, Ericsson's 5G equipment will be purchased and are in use.

In 2019, the big change in the communications market was the US technology blockade against HUAWEI, and HUAWEI resisted the first wave of attack. Employees who have HUAWEI operator's business told the twenty-first Century business reporter that people who know HUAWEI's related businesses will know that although they may be affected by the United States, HUAWEI can go through this.

At present, the European market is still developing rapidly. HUAWEI told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter that in December 14, 2019, Norway Telecom will continue to use Chinese suppliers HUAWEI's equipment in the construction of 5G network; in December 11th, HUAWEI 5G equipment has been allowed to enter the German market, and will provide 5G equipment and related technologies to Telefonica, one of the three major telecom operators in Germany in the next few years. In December 3rd, Finland telecom operator Elisa said that it had implemented a large-scale deployment of 5G in the capital of Helsinki, and HUAWEI provided 5G equipment.

Because of HUAWEI's limited overseas market, Ericsson and NOKIA will get some additional 5G opportunities.

Ericsson has been concentrating on wireless networks. Last year Ericsson raised market expectations and sales targets in 2020, but because of its single business, Ericsson was seriously affected by the investment cycle of the wireless network. In contrast, NOKIA has lowered its earnings forecast for 2020 because the company needs to invest more in the 5G field, and analysts think NOKIA is not fast enough.

In contrast, HUAWEI has invested most in 5G research and development in the past ten years. Compared with NOKIA and Ericsson, HUAWEI has abundant R & D funds, and has also helped to make its leading edge in 5G research and development. After the lifting of the resurgence, R & D costs have been significantly improved, and in order to get more voice in 5G, ZTE is continuously strengthening R & D investment in the core technology fields such as 5G wireless, core network, bearer, access, chip and so on.

It is worth noting that in addition to the top four, Samsung is also gaining weight. Samsung hopes to enter the 5G market through software superiority, virtualization technology and network automation management technology. Samsung also occupies a certain share of the top four.

In the industry view, although the two years will be affected by sanctions such as HUAWEI, but for a long time scale, Chinese enterprises will maintain their advantages.