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Huawei's European Breakthrough
Published: 18 July, 2007
Tags >> Huawei | Europe
These contracts mark a new departure and possibly lucrative breakthrough for Huawei into the European market. Until now, like its main Chinese competitor ZTE, Huawei's business has been concentrated within Asia and, to a lesser extent, the developing markets of Africa and the Middle East. According to WiDAR, 48% of Huawei's contracts in these regions have been for CDMA technology, 33% for GSM and 19% for UMTS, whilst all recent European contracts, including also ones with KPN Mobile and Vodafone Czech Republic, have been for UMTS equipment.
It has been a long-standing market orthodoxy that European operators tend to go for European equipment manufacturers. By the end of 2006, 74% of all European UMTS contracts had been awarded to European companies, following the tradition of network contracts for previous generation technologies. However, with large scale European operators prepared to try Huawei, in particular with HSDPA roll-outs, there is a clear possibility that further current and future generation contracts may increasingly head to China.
