Due to pressure from the United States, some countries deliberately excluded China’s Huawei from the construction of their country’s fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication system on the grounds of so-called national security issues. For this reason, European and Japanese communication equipment manufacturers see it as an opportunity and are stepping up their fight for 5G market share.

According to Kyodo News on December 2, Japanese manufacturer NEC, which had previously been weak in the 5G market, is currently cooperating with the British government to carry out empirical tests of 5G related technologies in 2021. NEC also considers this as a foothold for expanding overseas 5G business, emphasizing that not only the UK, but also the possibility of expanding its business globally.

As early as November, Huawei’s senior vice president Victor Zhang said in an interview with The Guardian that in the post-Trump era, the British government should reconsider Huawei’s 5G ban. Zhang Jiangang urged the United Kingdom to maintain its true identity as the birthplace of the first industrial revolution and believed that the United Kingdom should not be left behind in the 5G revolution.

On the other hand, other manufacturers are also stepping up their fight for market share.  Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia, the two Nordic companies are currently expanding 5G-related transactions. Among them, Ericsson’s 5G commercial contracts reached 116 on November 10, an increase of 17% since mid-July. Nokia also announced that it had 101 commercial contracts at the end of October, an increase of 22% since the end of July. In this regard, Nokia CEO Pekka Lundmark also emphasized, “As long as it can help us win the 5G race, we will invest in everything.”

According to data from the British research company Omdia, in terms of the current global 5G infrastructure market share after China is excluded, in the second quarter of 2020 (April to June) Huawei accounted for 28%, Sweden’s Ericsson accounted for 24%, and Finland’s Nokia accounted for 23%, and these three companies together accounted for three-quarters of the market share.