Being chosen by Spark New Zealand for some 5G work marks Nokia’s 50th 5G commercial contract, but Ericsson and Huawei have got more.

“I am thrilled to see Nokia 5G equipment chosen to power 5G initially in Spark’s heartland areas,” said Tommi Uitto, President of Mobile Networks at Nokia. “We are committed to keeping New Zealanders at the cutting edge of technology and are confident they will benefit from Nokia’s global reach, expertise and agility.”

“We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with Nokia in building our 5G network across New Zealand,” said Rajesh Singh, General Manager of Value Management at Spark New Zealand. “The local teams have collaborated extensively on a 5G solution that delivers on the outcomes we want to drive in 5G, not just in the RAN, but also in the end-to-end network.”

All this thrilling and delightful business takes Nokia’s 5G commercial contract count to 50. That’s a decent tally, but in the great global 5G race that still only earns it a bronze medal. Ericsson keeps a public tally of its 5G wins and puts the total at 76, with 31 of those publicly named and 23 transmitting shiny new 5G beams as you read this. Nokia says it’s involved in 16 live networks.

Huawei is less transparent about these things but the last we heard it had signed at least 60 5G contracts. Given Nokia’s recent admission about dropping the ball on 5G, the fact that it’s still in touch with the other two isn’t a bad effort, but if that gap continues to increase we might see fewer press releases referring to Nokia deal wins in future.