Nokia seals major China mobile deals

Nokia has revealed a series of major deals with some of the biggest names in the Chinese telecoms market.

The iconic Finnish firm has announced it will be working with China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom to help further the country's biggest operators develop their 5G infrastructure.

The three separate agreements will in total be worth around $2.3 billion, making this one of Nokia's most lucrative partnerships to date.

China 5G launch

China is facing unprecedented demand from consumers for 5G bandwidth and capacity due to its huge customer base, and the country's operators have turned to Nokia to assists in this.

Under the new deals, Nokia will provide technologies such as radio access, core, passive optical networks, IP routing and optical transport, SDN, network management and professional services for China Mobile.

The company will also support China Telecom in efforts to improve its country-wide 4G LTE coverage and hot spot capacity, providing solutions including core routers, multi-service edge routers and optics, as well as providing expertise to help with 5G development. 

Lastly, it will partner with China Unicom to help it improve its 4G and 4G LTE network quality and grow its customer base, whilst again looking to assist with 5G development.

"We are excited to continue our close collaboration with these important customers in China, to drive new levels of network performance as they transition toward 5G," said Mike Wang, president of Nokia Shanghai Bell.

"Leveraging the breadth of our end-to-end network and services capabilities, we will work closely with China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom to deploy technologies that meet their specific business needs."

Mike Moore
Deputy Editor, TechRadar Pro

Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK's leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he's not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.