Nordic telecoms giant TeliaSonera said Tuesday it had awarded part of a network construction contract in Norway to Huawei, giving the Chinese telecom equipment maker an entry into a market long dominated by Sweden's Ericsson.
The contract, which is to be shared with Ericsson, is to upgrade TeliaSonera's existing second and third generation (2G and 3G) mobile networks in Norway and to extend the reach of its 4G network there, the Swedish-Finnish telecoms company said in a statement.
"Huawei is providing equipment for the southern part of the network and Ericsson for the northern part" of Norway, where only around 20 percent of the population lives, the company said.
The value of the contract was not given.
Following the news, Ericsson saw its share price fall slightly but it inched back up 0.46 percent to 76.35 kronor in midday trade on a Stockholm stock exchange up 1.44 percent.
Huawei, which was founded more than two decades ago, has in recent years experienced booming growth at the expense of the historic majors in the telecom equipment sector — Ericsson, Nokia Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent.
At the end of 2009, the Chinese company won contracts in Sweden with Norwegian operator Telenor and Sweden's Tele2 for their 4G network roll-outs, completed late last year.
Huawei had previously threatened to unseat Ericsson from 4G contracts with TeliaSonera but had until now only been handed a deal to provide equipment to part of the Oslo network.
TeliaSonera, which is battling Telenor for market leadership in the Nordic region, is at the forefront of the 4G network roll-out, which offers speeds 10 times faster than 3G.
The Swedish-Finnish company's first 4G network, which was also the world's first, was inaugurated at the end of 2009 in Stockholm and Oslo.
TeliaSonera today offers 4G capabilities — so far limited to mobile internet and not yet available for phones — in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia and Denmark.
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