Ericsson wins big in China

Swedish equipment firm Ericsson said Monday that it has scored two frame agreements with China’s leading wireless operators, China Mobile and China Unicom, valued at $1.8bn.

China is one of the world’s fastest growing markets, with a mobile penetration rate of 54 per cent at the end of 2009, forecast to grow to more than 61 per cent by the end of 2010. The country’s mobile subscriber base hit 726 million at the end of 2009 and is set to rise by more than 100 million by year end.

China Mobile and Unicom own the lion’s share of subscribers, counting 522 million and 147 million customers respectively, and with the government’s re-jigging of the telecoms landscape underway there is plenty of opportunity.

Under the agreement with China Mobile, Ericsson will provide a radio access network including a multi-standard radio base station RBS 6000 and mobile soft-switching technology, which will boost the capacity of the network, while evolving it into an all IP platform. This framework contract is worth $1bn and will be implemented during 2010.

Under the agreement with China Unicom, Ericsson will provide a faster 3G network based on HSPA Evolution to secure higher speed and a better user experience. Ericsson will also supply IP routers, fibre access technologies GPON and 40G WDM as well as an IP multimedia subsystem (IMS). This framework contract is worth $800m and will also be implemented during 2010.

IMS 2.0 World Forum 2010, takes place in Barcelona, April 27-29