Huawei, Ericsson or Nokia? Apple or Samsung?

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Huawei, Ericsson or Nokia? Apple or Samsung?

Once a glimmer in the eyes of executives from Shenzhen to Silicon Valley, 5G now dominates a broad swath of the global supply chain—and the competition to control different parts of it is heating up.To get more ericsson news, you can visit shine news official website.

Equipment makers, smartphone sellers and chip designers are all vying for control of machines and services that use the fifth-generation wireless standard, which is becoming easier to find across parts of Asia, Europe and North America. Since its start as a series of plans developed by engineers and government policy makers, 5G technology has moved from a rounding error to a multibillion-dollar business for many tech companies.

Like other engineering upgrades before it, 5G has helped reshuffle the global pecking order in the markets for smartphones and cell-tower equipment. At the same time, government officials from Tokyo to Washington are a key part of the global competition, determined to support their 5G industries for economic and geopolitical reasons. Their subsidies and mandates stem from a worry that whichever country dominates the 5G economy will reap the economic rewards for decades to come.
All of which leads to this question: Who’s ahead? Which equipment makers are in the lead and which ones are gaining or losing? Which cellphone companies have jumped out in these early days of 5G deployment? Which countries are leading the way in terms of 5G availability? Below we offer a scorecard, a snapshot in time of some of the most competitive 5G races.

The long-held market positions of the major telecom-equipment suppliers are shifting as the world’s communications carriers build out their 5G networks.

China’s Huawei Technologies Co. continues to lead the $90 billion-a-year market for telecommunications equipment, as it has for the past several years. But others are gaining ground, as Huawei faces restrictions from governments around the world thanks to Washington’s campaign to stifle sales of the company’s equipment over cybersecurity concerns.

At the end of 2020, Huawei had captured more than a 30% share of the market, according to research firm Dell’Oro Group. In the first half of this year, Huawei’s share slipped to 28.8%.Sweden’s Ericsson AB increased its market share to 15% in the first half from 14.7% last year, putting it in second place, while Finland’s Nokia Corp. slipped to third place as its share declined to 14.9% from 15.4%. Ericsson and Nokia have been heading in opposite directions since 2018.

Among competitors with smaller shares, analysts note that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. boosted its share to 3.2% in the first half, up from 2.4% last year and more than twice the company’s 1.5% share in 2017.

“Outside of China, we estimate that both Ericsson and Samsung are the ones that are gaining share right now,” says Stefan Pongratz, an analyst at Dell’Oro Group.

Ericsson has made a number of 5G gains, but perhaps none bigger than the five-year, $8.3 billion deal it signed in July with Verizon Communications Inc. Ericsson will supply Verizon with 5G radio systems and software, including a relatively new cellular-antenna technology called massive multiple-input multiple-output, an area where Ericsson has been investing heavily. In late September, the company upgraded its Massive MIMO product line with a lighter unit—coming in at 26 pounds, about 40% less than its previous generation—which the company said will make it easier for carriers to deploy 5G.

But the company does face headwinds, particularly in China. Ericsson has warned that it could lose market share in China as a result of Swedish regulators’ decision last year to ban Huawei from the Scandinavian country’s 5G wireless networks. Chinese officials have threatened to retaliate.

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