By Abhinav Parmar and Supantha Mukherjee
(Reuters) – Nokia is expected to win a contract to supply 5G radio equipment to Portuguese telecom operator MEO, according to an internal Nokia blog post and two sources familiar with the matter.
Nokia is prepared to secure the deal, although China’s Huawei is MEO’s only supplier of 2G, 3G and 4G Radio Access Network (RAN) equipment.
The contract has been agreed but not yet signed, and the announcement is likely to be made as early as next month, according to the sources.
MEO is one of Portugal’s main mobile operators, formerly known as Telecom Portugal and now owned by French company Altice.
“In recent years, MEO… has been provided in RAN only by Huawei. That is, Huawei has had a 100% market share in 2G/3G/4G. We have now been selected to replace Huawei in some of the main markets in Portugal,” wrote Tommi Uitto, president of Nokia’s mobile networks, in an internal blog seen by Reuters.
A Nokia spokesperson declined to comment, as did Huawei. MEO did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
RAN equipment has generated the majority of telecom sales for companies such as Huawei, Nokia and its Swedish rival Ericsson, but the drop in demand for new equipment from telcos since last year has hit Nokia and Ericsson, leading them to cut thousands of jobs.
The global RAN market is expected to shrink by 5-8% in 2024, according to research firm Dell’Oro.
Huawei, which has been banned in the US and several European countries due to security concerns, still has some presence in Europe and a major share in China’s fast-growing telecommunications market.
The deal would mark Nokia’s return to Portugal’s RAN market after it lost market share to Huawei many years ago and has not supplied RAN to any communications service provider in the country since then, Uitto wrote in the internal blog seen by Reuters .
(Reporting by Abhinav Parmar and Supantha Mukherjee; additional reporting by Olivier Sorgho; editing by Susan Fenton)
