Huawei May Be Next Big Mobile Infrastructure Player

Permalink: Huawei May Be Next Big Mobile Infrastructure Player by Alan Harten

ABI Research has been looking into who owns the world’s mobile infrastructure and has come to the conclusion that the market leader is Ericsson, with the best part of 29% of the worlds infrastructure needs.

Not to far behind is rival Nokia Siemens with more than 23% of the infrastructure, but they see Huawei with just 8% as a serious rival for these two giants.

Over the last eighteen months they have gained very significant ground and are closing in rapidly on number three player at 13% Alcatel-Lucent.

This is partly because of Alcatel’s decline since its merger with Lucent; in fact it has lost 63% of its new wireless infrastructure deals when compared with the last six months of 2007.

A big problem for them has been their big North American clients Sprint and Verizon Wireless, who have completed their EV-DO Rev A deployments.

This has meant a lot less cash flowing Alcatel’s way over the first half of this year; Sprint alone has reduced $1 billion from its CAPEX bill.

All eyes are now well focused on the booming Chinese market and its $80 billion already earmarked for infrastructure by 2011.

There are also opportunities in the other mega-populated country India as well as Africa that may well lead to Huawei finding new and potential opportunities that could push it ahead of the big boys.

ABI Research compared all kinds of factors in its report “Mobile Network Vendor SWOT Analysis” and found that Huawei is currently well positioned to threaten not just Alcatel but the two leaders in the field, Nokia and maybe even Ericsson.