China Unicom taps Nokia to supply 10% share of its 5G core network

China Unicom has selected telecom equipment maker Nokia to supply around 10 percent share of its 5G core network.
“China Unicom has selected Nokia to support the build-out ofits 5G SA Core network, marking an expansion of Nokia’s existing 4G working relationship with the Chinese communication service provider,” Nokia said in a statement.

China Unicom has also selected China’s Huawei and ZTE to supply its 5G core network.

“The core network performs a variety of functions, including setting up connections, bandwidth management, scaling and securing the network, and, now with 5G, opening up the network to support new, software-enabled use cases such as network slicing,” Nokia said on Monday.

Despite progress in its core network sales in China, Nokia has been on the sidelines for larger China radio network orders, which include masts, antennas and other equipment.

Nokia did not win any 5G radio contracts from Chinese telecom companies – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – in recent bidding rounds.

Nokia said it currently has 17 percent market share in China Unicom’s VoLTE network and it has deployed Nokia’s cloud-based vIMS platform.