ZTE on Thursday said it won most CDMA deals from China Telecom.
The Chinese telecom equipment vendor says it received the most new contracts in phase 1 of China Telecom Group’s 2013 CDMA network procurement program.
China Telecom, the country’s third-largest mobile phone carrier, has set capital expenditure (Capex) for 2013 at 75 billion yuan ($12 billion), a 3.3 percent increase from the previous year.
The amount includes spending on assets acquired from its parent state-owned China Telecom last year.
China Telecom’s actual spending was 53.73 billion yuan in 2012, but after factoring in the acquisition of its parent’s assets later that year, total capex was 72.525 billion yuan.
Global operator’s telecom Capex
Infonetics, in a December 2012 research note said that the major areas of investment of global telecom operators through 2015 include fiber-based wireline broadband, 2G mobile network capacity expansion, 2G migration to 3G, and migration to LTE projects.
Asia Pacific will account for about 1/3 of global service provider revenue by 2016, propelled by China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator by revenue and subscribers.
Wireless pure-play operators will account for nearly 1/3 of all telecom Capex by 2016, driven by 3G and LTE rollouts in China, India, and Africa.
China Mobile, China Telecom’s main rival, is also increasing Capex in the country.
To sustain the huge data demand and roll out a LTE network, the carrier will increase Capex by around 50 percent in 2013. Compared to RMB 127 billion spent on network upgrades last year, China Mobile expects to incur more than RMB 190 billion in Capex spend this year. More than 50 percent of its mobile network spending, or about $7 billion, will be driven by TD-LTE.
China Telecom’s 3G services to get boost
ZTE, a CDMA provider with 32.6 percent market share globally, will support China Telecom’s 3G services.
With the 2013 network procurement program, China Telecom is strongly-positioned to grasp the new opportunities in CDMA services and meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of subscribers.
“We are fully committed to offering China Telecom the most advanced products and solutions,” said Fan Xiaobing, vice president of ZTE. “ZTE always strives to deliver the best technology, and the most customized services.”
To date, ZTE has shipped more than 355,000 units of CDMA base stations, with cumulative wireless capacity of 380 million lines.
