As the tensions from Huawei goes stronger this year, SoftBank Corp. has chosen Swedish telecom Ericsson to deliver 5G technology for their network.
This year, Huawei has been getting a lot of flak regarding its technology to the point where the U.S. has banned them. It also pressured the U.K. into banning the Chinese tech giant permanently due to circulating issues regarding its security.
The race for network dominance is still up for grabs as European telecom giants are now moving in to mobilize its own 5G technology.
The recent Huawei ban on the U.S. and U.K. has led China to reportedly go after Nokia and Ericsson, according to Wall Street Journal.
Ericsson pulling all kinds of deals this month
In a press release this week, Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core will be implemented with SoftBank in an effort to enable the development of new 5G use cases for mobile broadband users.
Keiichi Makizono, Senior Vice President and CIO of SoftBank expressed his mutual relationship with Ericsson as he added:
“Under our new agreement, we will extend our long-term partnership and provide a high quality and future-proof platform enabling a new wave of innovation for Japanese society.”
In addition, they currently have 99 commercial 5G deals with unique operators and supports 54 live 5G networks worldwide.
Aside from the 5G partnership with SoftBank this week, India’s Airtel also announced a renewed partnership with Ericsson.
Furthermore, Omantel also selected Ericsson for its 5G network deployment in key locations across Oman.
Quarterly profit on the rise for Ericsson
News from Reuters said that a rise in 5G network sales and software revenue helped Ericsson report better quarterly core earnings.
Also, the recent Huawei ban from the U.K. has given Ericsson as well as Finland’s Nokia an opportunity window in implementing next-generation 5G technology to its European neighbors. As per Ben Wood, chief analysts at CCS Insight, told Reuters:
“On paper (the UK ban) should be a tremendous opportunity for Ericsson, particularly if there is contagion to other markets.”
Although Ericsson did not have any targets for 2021, they observed that high-margin software sales increased despite their digital services unit being hit due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Ericsson reported a 2020 group sales target of around US$25.3-26.4 billion [AU$35.8-37.4 billion] and an adjusted operating margin goal of more than 10%.
However, its digital services business is likely to miss its target this year as per Ericsson CEO Borje Ekholm.
As the war for 5G supremacy wages on, this might be the year where the European telecom giants could go back to being as competitive in the mobile market.
With Huawei out of the picture, the next challenge that they would probably face is to be on par with Samsung and Apple.
Featured image courtesy of Arild/Flickr