Telecom Lead India: Huawei is set to retain top telecom
equipment vendor position in coming quarters, thanks to its growing revenue
from enterprise and mobile phone businesses.
Its main rivals – Ericsson and Nokia Siemens – do not
have this big opportunity to compete with the Chinese telecom equipment maker.
Huawei’s first half financial result suggests that it is
the leading telecom equipment vendor in the world and ahead of Ericsson and
Nokia Siemens.
Huawei’s achievement is despite growing security concerns
related to its telecom gears. (READ: Huawei first half revenue up 5% to CNY 102.7 billion)
The company has surpassed its Swedish rival Ericsson
in terms of revenues earned in the first half of 2012. Huawei posted $16.1
billion revenue for first-half 2012, which crossed Ericsson’s $15.25 billion
over the same period.
The company has been quiet aggressive in terms of
offering low-cost equipments to the leading mobile operators across the world.
With increasing LTE deployments, Huawei is set further to strengthen its market
position.
The company claims that all global top-10 mobile
operators (ranked by subscriber base) have chosen Huawei for commercial LTE
deployment in 2011. (READ: Huawei leads modem market in 2011 with 47 percent)
According to Ying Weimin, President of Huawei
GSM&UMTS<E Network, Huawei helped Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica,
Telenor, TeliaSonera, and Vodafone launch their LTE services commercially.
In addition to the telecom infrastructure business,
Huawei has been expanding its phone business across the world as well. In 2011,
Huawei’s total mobile phone shipments stood at 55
million units, including 500 percent increase in smartphone
shipments at 20 million units.
Surging smarphone business has been a great help for
Huawei to meet its revenue targets. (READ: Telecom gear makers Huawei and ZTE to strengthen Smartphone
market share)
On the other hand, dipping revenues of Ericsson could be
seen in the background of ongoing economic crisis in Europe, which has
restricted the major European telcos to delay their investments for the network
expansions. Ericsson’s results suggest that it has been struggling in other key
markets such as Russia, China and India.
Additionally, the company sold off its stake in
Sony-Ericsson JV to get rid of its mobile business, while in contrast, Huawei
is going strong with its mobile phone business.
In order to focus on its core business area including
OSS/BSS space, Ericsson is focusing on inorganic growth with its acquisitions
and merger with couple of managed services and OSS/BSS companies. (READ: Ericsson closes Telcordia acquisition)
During past months, Ericsson completed acquisitions of
Telcordia and Broadcast Services Division of Technicolor.
Recently, Gartner ranked Ericsson second in Operation and
Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS) and next generation Service Delivery
Platforms based on revenue.
In the enterprise business, Huawei’s main competition is
with Cisco, Avaya, Juniper Networks, etc. Cisco will be announcing its result
soon. (READ: Huawei claims #2 position in telepresence technology market).
Danish Khan
editor@telecomlead.com
