Huawei passed Nokia Siemens Networks for the No. 2 position in the global mobile infrastructure equipment market in the third quarter, according to research firm Dell'Oro--a sign of the changing fortunes of the two vendors.
According to Dell'Oro, Huawei's marketshare nearly doubled to 20 percent, up from 11 percent in the year-ago quarter. Nokia Siemens saw its marketshare slip from 24 percent to around 20 percent, just below Huawei. Swedish vendor Ericsson is still the world's leading infrastructure vendor with 32 percent marketshare, flat from the year-ago quarter.
The charge by Huawei reflects not only the intense competition in the infrastructure market, but also the struggles that Nokia Siemens has experienced. Last month, Nokia said that it now expects Nokia Siemens' marketshare to decline by more than previously expected in 2009, compared with 2008. NSN also said earlier this month it may cut as many as 5,760 jobs as part of a broad restructuring and cost-cutting program in which it will reduce the number of its business units from five to three.
Meanwhile, Huawei is enjoying some of the benefits that come along with growing market dominance. Norway's Telenor gave Huawei Europe's biggest LTE contract to date, a striking announcement considering that both Ericsson and Nokia Siemens provided the legacy infrastructure for Telenor's network.
For more:
- see this Reuters article
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