Nokia inks €1 billion framework agreement with China Mobile

A new agreement, valued at €1 billion ($1.17 billion, £0.88 billion), has been signed that covers the delivery of Nokia products and services to China Mobile throughout 2018.

The signing took place in Berlin during the fifth iteration of the inter-governmental economic forum between Germany and China, starring the German Chancellor Angela Markel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. This capped a busy week for Nokia’s business updates with China, during which time it also signed MoUs to set up joint labs with Tencent and China Mobile respectively.

Nokia was already one of the key vendors in China when the first its mobile telecom networks were rolled out there in the late 20^th century. However, it was only recently, after it bought Siemens out of their joint-venture, then acquired Alcatel-Lucent including the legendary Bell Labs, did Nokia become a credible end-to-end supplier. In this new agreement Nokia’s supplies to China Mobile will include the full range of equipment and services from access, backbone, transport, to network management.

Mike Wang, President of Nokia Shanghai Bell, which will be the front-end implementation entity with China Mobile, saw this agreement “highly significant”, consolidating “Nokia’s position as a leading provider of next-generation technologies and services in China.” Chinese companies are much more aggressive in rolling out 5G in scale than their Western European counterparts.