Samsung mounts 5G offensive as countries review Huawei networks
LA TimesPeople pass by an For years Huawei’s biggest rivals in the telecom equipment market — Finnish group Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson — were based far away from the Shenzhen group. “Samsung’s recent win with Verizon could be a game changer,” said Stefan Pongratz, a 5G expert at research company Dell’Oro Group. Woojune Kim, the head of global sales at Samsung’s network business, told a British parliamentary committee in July: “You could say that we placed our bet on the wrong horse.” In recent years, the group has intensified its focus on 5G, spending more on research and taking a keener role in the development of the industry standards and protocols that apply to new network technology. Huawei: down but not out So far, Samsung’s 5G business has targeted network operators mostly in advanced economies, particularly in Asia, Western Europe and North America.