Ericsson is the leading vendor in terms of value size and contracts, after the Swedish firm rolled out the first commercial system in Q4 2009 through TeliaSonera in Stockholm. Research firm TeleGeography believes Huawei is benefiting from agreements with small to medium-size operators in high growth developing markets, while Ericsson is fundamentally operating in well developed, low-growth markets where they have established relationships.
Huawei also continues to take a market share in the western market, with 18 contracts for commercial LTE deployments, including deals with Vodafone in Germany and China mobile. Ericcson, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel- Lucent dominated the build out of 2G and 3G networks, but there has been growth for Huawei with 4G deployment, especially in Asian markets where low price is a priority.
