Huawei is still the leader on 5G commercial contracts
Chinese vendor Huawei went ahead with its big pre-MWC event
in spite of everything and the standard levels of self-promotion took place.
Just as with last week’s Ericsson event, the cancellation of
MWC due to the threat posed by coronavirus cast a pall over Huawei’s pre-show
extravaganza. In fact Huawei had taken the trouble to reassure attendees
yesterday that all precautions had been taken to protect them from any viral
nastiness, including the self-quarantine of any Huawei employees travelling
from China. We’re pleased to report an almost total absence of sneezing at the
event.
The first keynote was delivered by the President of Huawei’s
Carrier Business Group, Ryan Ding. He started by announcing, in an admirably
steady voice, that while 4G delivers information, 5G delivers emotion. Ding
served up the expected slide featuring photos of white boxes Huawei had
intended to fondle at MWC, which included the claimed lightest ever 5G base
station, weighing in at a mere 25 kilos.
The most interesting slide to us, however, contained an
update on the number of 5G commercial contracts Huawei has won, which now total
91. This puts them ahead of the 81 announced by Ericsson last week and well
ahead of the 63 most recently announced by Nokia. Appropriately enough,
Huawei’s event was many times larger than Ericsson’s, while Nokia has held no
pre-MWC event that we’re aware of.
Within that 91, more than half (47) are in Europe, which is
likely to trigger US President Trump more than ever, 27 are in Asia and 17 are
elsewhere in the world. There were some further boasts and an attempted demo of
a live 5G broadcast from the BBC, which sadly lacked audio. Ding concluded with
the announcement of a $20 million investment in its UK partner innovation
programme.
The undoubted highlight of the morning, however, was a panel
discussion on how 5G can enable a bunch of different industries. The reason it
was so great was that it was moderated by none other than Telecoms.com Deputy
Editor Jamie Davies, who shrugged off a rugby injury to bring his
characteristic wit and insight to the chat.
The general tone of the panel, which featured five
spokespeople from UK industry, was cautious optimism about what 5G brings to
the table. It was note that in its current form it offers little more than a
speed boost, but things should get interesting when low-latency kicks in with standalone
5G. There was lots of speculation about what can be done to drive consumer
engagement in 5G, but few concrete answers.
These sorts of big corporate chest-beating events aren’t
really designed for journalists as everything (bar the panel discussion) is
very scripted and rehearsed. Having said that, apart from the deal wins, Huawei
didn’t overdo the self-aggrandizing. It remains in a precarious geopolitical
position and claiming leadership of everything, whether true or not, is
probably not a great look for Huawei right now.
Comments
Post a Comment