China Mobile awards 4G contracts to Huawei and ZTE

22 May 2014 | Kavit Majithia

China Mobile has awarded the bulk of the contracts for the roll-out of its LTE networks to vendors Huawei and ZTE, according to sources.

At the end of last year, it emerged that the operator had awarded contracts to European companies Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia, which were estimated to be worth approximately $160 million.

This latest award represents 40% of China Mobile’s 4G contracts, and services are scheduled to begin later this year.

The company said it would award half of its contracts for 4G build-out to domestic equipment vendors in October, but confirmed that international vendors will also be involved.

The estimate value of the overall contract for 4G is $3.2 billion.