Ericsson does not yet notice the benefits of espionage accusations Huawei

Despite criticism of Huawei, it does not yet lead to additional sales by competitors. The Swedish telecom manufacturer Ericsson states that it has not yet seen an increase in the number of contracts as a result of the problems that Huawei in China is facing.

What we see is that consumers are worried, says Ericsson CEO Borje Ekholm to Reuters. And that, of course, leads to more conversations with customers for us. But we can’t see where contracts end up next. At the same time, there is a chance that these contracts will end up with Ericsson, among others, in the near future. We have already heard that the United States is looking at collaborations with Ericsson and Nokia.

Gaining an advantage

In any case, some analysts expect Western companies such as Nokia and Ericsson to benefit from Huawei’s suspicions. This is because the Chinese company is invariably accused by the United States of espionage. That is, of course, firmly denied by Huawei, and the company has even brought a lawsuit against the United States.

It is striking that Ericsson already won back a 5G customer from Huawei. The Danish telecom provider TDC has Ericsson set up and roll out its 5G network. Huawei had concluded a six-year network deal with the TDC in 2013. That would be Huawei’s reference customer, so that the progress it was making in terms of networks would be clear.

However, TDC CEO Allison Kirkby says it is not blind to the concerns about Huawei and the security of information. But in this case, the leading factor would have been the price. According to Ericsson, it won this contract because it is a technology leader in 5G. This is a strategically important customer and we will build their entire network that we see as a strategically important partnership, concludes Ekholm.