Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri claims the company is winning two-thirds of contracts against rival Ericsson despite equipment delays.
Suri is confident in Nokia’s positioning and said the vendor is winning contracts “quite handsomely” in 5G networks.
Earlier this month, Nokia director Federico Guillen said interest has grown from operators in countries debating the use of Chinese equipment following US-led security concerns. With around 42 5G contracts, Nokia has overtaken Huawei (40) and Ericsson (19).
“We compete quite favourably with Huawei, with or without the current security concerns,” Suri said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Caroline Hyde on Monday.
Some analysts and investors are concerned about delays in Nokia’s delivery of 5G equipment. However, Suri said a few weeks of delays “is not really much” in the context of a 15-20 year cycle.
Nokia has established a reputation for offering a full end-to-end solution. Suri reveals around 49 percent of its orders are now end-to-end compared to around 35 percent a year ago.
Industrial clients, in particular, want to buy complete solutions. Nokia has around 1,000 of such customers and is adding 150 to 200 per year. With more companies adding private networks for IoT purposes, Suri believes the business for Nokia “will be fairly significant”.
5G adoption is generally happening quicker than expected. Ericsson put out a report today upgrading its 5G mobile broadband forecast by an extra 400 million before the end of 2024. Ericsson previously forecasted 45 percent 5G coverage of the world’s population by the end of 2024, now it believes that could reach 65 percent.
One thing is for sure, now is a very good time to be a telecoms vendor.
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