Chinese companies will lead 5G technology in the long run

Chinese companies will play a leading role in 5G technology in the long run despite restriction and fierce competition, Sina Finance reported on Saturday.

Huawei has withstood the first wave of attacks and will finally tackle the challenges caused by the technological ban imposed by the United States, the greatest uncertainty in telecommunications market in 2019, according to an insider.

Finnish telecommunications company Nokia announced 63 commercial 5G deals worldwide on its official website on Jan 9, indicating that these deals exclude other type of 5G agreements, such as paid network trials, pilots or demonstrations.

Chinese tech giant Huawei has signed over 60 5G commercial deals with global leading operators and sent 400,000 5G Massive MIMO AAU worldwide by the middle of October last year. Huawei has been providing support to launch 35 5G commercial network by December.

Another Chinese telecommunication company ZTE has signed about 35 5G commercial deals, according to statistics released in November.

Swedish company Ericsson has signed 78 5G commercial agreements and deals globally and provided equipment for 24 officially operational 5G commercial networks by December.

Chinese companies' discourse power has been further increased and has entered key-standards setting arena, although fierce competition for 5G deals will continue, the report said indicating that the competition of 5G equipment providers will turn white-hot in 2020.

Nokia boasts to be the only 5G network (equipment) provider chosen by the United States' all four major operators, Korea's all three leading operators and Japan's all big three operators nationwide and obtained more than 2,000 essential patents for 5G.

After selling mobile phone business, Nokia has been focused on 5G business and the company has taken a leading role in software development, IoT deployment and wireless connection, said Bhaskar Gorti, president of Nokia Software, as reported by the 21st Century Business Herald.

In 5G market, Ericsson last year cooperated with many global operators including Qatar telecom operator Ooredoo, Saudi telecommunications company STC and Russian operator Tele2. In Chinese market, Ericsson has closely worked with domestic operators and terminal manufactures and explored landing scenarios by opening a smart factory last November.

Compared with the two European companies, Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE have more complete industrial chain in 5G technology with a wider coverage, including chips, terminals, systems, and specialized end-to-end 5G solutions.

In addition to 5G base stations, Huawei and ZTE have also launched many terminal products, including multiple 5G mobile phones and 5G CPE.

Statistics from Huawei show the shipment volume of Huawei's 5G base station modules increased 300 percent from May to October last year, up from 100,000 to 400, 000. In September, Huawei also took the lead to deliver an end-to-end 5G Standalone independent networking model.

Despite being blocked by the United States, Huawei said at the end of September that it had started producing 5G base stations without US components. The company is two-three years ahead in some core components of base stations, a Huawei insider told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.

Huawei is currently in cooperation with many countries including Switzerland, United Kingdom, Monaco, France, Malaysia and Russia.

ZTE's market in 5G is also recovering and the company is in cooperation with operators including Telefónica, Orange, WindTre, and Austrian Hutchison Drei.

It is projected that China's base stations will have hundreds of thousands of demand, and the global demand will reach millions in 2020, the report said.