Nokia Siemens appears to have edged Chinese vendor Huawei in landing a deal to buy Motorola’s network equipment arm.
NSN could close a deal in the next few weeks to buy Motorola’s shrinking infrastructure division for a cool $1.1-1.3 billion (€866 million to €1.02 billion), said the WSJ, citing sources close to the talks.
Securing the arm would likely see NSN consolidate its position behind Ericsson as the world’s second largest equipment vendor by sales, ahead of Huawei.
The WSJ says that Huawei’s talks to buy the Motorola unit have cooled, possibly due to security hurdles.
Huawei has been lobbying US security officials in a bid to ease fears over its alleged links to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) since April.
Huawei last month told the Indian government that it is owned by 61,500 employees, and not the PLA, amid security concerns over Chinese equipment imports.
NSN is eager to ramp up its presence in the US after losing out to Ciena last year in the contest for Nortel’s the optical and carrier Ethernet assets.
Motorola is in the throes of splitting its network business from its handset unit in a demerger expected to be completed by March 2011.
The firm has not has not ruled out selling its network business off in the meantime.