Bouygues Telecom business will swap 3,000 Huawei-made mobile antennas in France by 2028 following a decision by the country’s authorities to remove equipment made by the Chinese company from highly populated areas.
rench authorities have told telecoms operators planning to buy Huawei 5G equipment that they will not be able to renew licences for the gear once they expire, effectively phasing the Chinese group out of mobile networks by 2028, Reuters reported.
“A number of sites will gradually have to be dismantled,” Bouygues’s deputy chief executive Olivier Roussat told reporters in a call, adding that the number sites made with Huawei equipment amounted to 3,000.
“The dismantling will be carried out over a period of eight years, with a limited impact on our operating results,” Roussat said.
Bouygues Telecom revenue grew by 4 percent from a year earlier, with an estimated COVID impact on revenue of 70 million euros. The division’s current operating profit grew by 23 million to 253 million euros.
“The long-term trends on which the group relies remain buoyant,” Chief Executive Martin Bouygues said.
Bouygues did not provide new group financial targets for 2020 after dropping them earlier this year.
Bouygues’ telecoms arm expects to grow by around 4 percent in 2020 vs a previous target of 5 percent. It also sees free cash flow reaching 250 million euros for the year, close to the 300 million-euro target set at the beginning of 2020.
