Courtsey - the mobileindian
The U.S. has made it clear that it's not going to entertain any loopholes in the Huawei blacklisting ordinance that was passed earlier this year. In fact, they have gone to the lengths of convincing other countries to cut contacts with them whatsoever. Basically, trying to corner Huawei in every way possible. This entire saga started when the U.S.A Government officials arrested daughter of C.E.O of Huawei - Men Wanzhou ( Yeah a lady with name of "Men" :P) for fraud in alleged violations of Iran sanctions. She's one of the most powerful identities in the Huawei business not just as the daughter of the CEO but also is responsible for many financial decisions taken by her father. So, you can imagine the impact it had when she got arrested. Huawei is one of the largest companies in the world - so much so that their headquarters is like an entire city which requires a train to commute within it. And a company of that prospect could be very influential in the country. What followed the arrest of Men Wanzhou was a series of talks between USA and China for trade deal that USA has been trying for quite a few years ,but wasn't able to crack one. The tensions only grew further leading to USA levying sanctions blocking companies in the USA from conducting business with Huawei. This was a huge loss for Huawei as it's one of the top 3 smartphone manufacturers and Google's Android OS was the crux of its smartphone business, which it was now blocked from using.
Huawei is also - sorry "was" also leader of developing telecommunication related equipment and providing end to end solution for network providers with Europe and US being its primary consumers. With the new trade war that ensued between the USA and China and the COVID19 situation flaring up out of proportion, things were going against Huawei. 2020 was the quintessential year for the 5G roll out and without the cell towers or the base stations to support the same, smartphones or other devices with 5G would be of no use. That's where Ericsson and Nokia started talking to the companies and governments in Europe and the US. They were trying to take advantage of the anti-China sentiment that was spreading across the globe. Many countries canceled their deals with Huawei and started shifting to these 2 alternatives. As per the recent news, Singapore has already made deals with Ericsson to provide the equipment and infrastructure for the 5G setup. Moreover, with 5G being deployed in 2 frequency bands namely - 60GHz band and the 6GHz band. These vendors have the flexibility to provide services accordingly and focus on one of these bands and later expand to the other band.
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Even in Canada, Telus - a network service provider has gone with Nokia,Ericsson for 5G deployment. A total investment of $200 Billion USD has been allocated by the Canadian Government over 5 years to completely provide the 5G infrastructure across the entire country. Bell Communications has already started deploying the 5G setup in certain cities using Nokia's equipment. We are expecting as we progress with the vaccine in sight of last quarter of 2020, more and more countries would announce their deals with Ericsson and Nokia and also possibly Samsung and NEC might get some part of the pie. With the market share of 38% from Huawei up for grabs, the competitors have a huge opportunity to cash out a huge pay day that would suffice for at least the next 5 years.
The newly generated demand for the Nokia,Ericsson,Samsung and NEC would not be easy to handle logistically. With the current situation and micro lockdowns imposed across different countries, it would be interesting to see how these firms ramp up their supply chains and meet the deadlines. Lot of skilled labor and third party contracts need to be drafted by these companies to scale up the operations as per the country's population and area. From the competitive fairness point of view, ideally this is a good move as Huawei would have crossed the 50% barrier in the 5G end - to - end solutions business had the trade war between U.S. and China not commenced. If you think these alternatives can manage scaling up the operations and meet deadlines, let us know in the comments. Until then Stay tuned and Stay Safe!
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