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Huawei
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Struggling Huawei loses ground in global telecoms equipment market, but remains sector’s top vendor on back of China demand

  • Nokia and Ericsson led telecoms equipment sales outside China in 2021, as Huawei struggled with US sanctions and barred from other major 5G markets
  • Global telecoms equipment sales last year reached nearly US$100 billion, up 7 per cent from 2020

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Huawei Technologies Co struggles to stay afloat and remain relevant in its industry in the face of US trade sanctions and Washington’s pressure on its economic allies to bar use of the Chinese firm’s 5G equipment. Photo: Shutterstock
Che Pan
Huawei Technologies Co lost some ground last year in the US$100 billion global telecommunications equipment market, according to a new report, but remained the industry’s top vendor on the back of strong demand from mainland China’s mobile network operators.
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Shenzhen-based Huawei, which has been on the US trade blacklist since May 2019, still retained its lead in the global telecoms gear market with a revenue share of about 28 per cent, according to a report by research firm Dell’Oro Group, which did not provide a breakdown of 2021 sales.

The Chinese firm was followed by Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson, each of which had around 16 per cent revenue market share in the same period.

“Huawei continued to lead the global market, underscoring its grip on the Chinese market, depth of its telecoms portfolio and resiliency with existing footprints,” said analyst Stefan Pongratz, who is responsible for mobile radio access network (RAN) market and telecoms capital expenditure research programmes at Dell’Oro.

Huawei Technologies Co’s 5G base stations are seeing strong demand on the mainland, as major telecommunications carriers like China Mobile roll out their next-generation wireless network services. Photo: Shutterstock
Huawei Technologies Co’s 5G base stations are seeing strong demand on the mainland, as major telecommunications carriers like China Mobile roll out their next-generation wireless network services. Photo: Shutterstock
Huawei and ZTE Corp are the main suppliers of 5G equipment, including base stations that are known as RAN, to three of the world’s largest wireless network operators, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. These three operators collectively lead the development of the world’s biggest 5G mobile network in China, which expects to have 2 million installed 5G base stations this year.
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Dell’Oro analyst Pongratz, however, indicated that ongoing efforts by the US government to curb the deployment of Huawei’s telecoms network equipment outside China has had a negative impact on the company.

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