Telecom operators are accelerating their timelines for the roll-out of next-generation 5G networks, lifting Nokia's confidence of an uplift for its business this year, Chief Executive Rajeev Suri said on Sunday. The telecom network industry, dominated by China's Huawei, Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson, is weathering the toughest part of a decade-long cycle as demand for 4G gear falls.
But the first commercial 5G roll-outs are due to begin this year and Suri said he expected large deployments in the United States, South Korea, Japan and China to take place sooner than what the industry could have expected a year ago. "The confidence about where that 5G uplift comes from is understanding the accelerated timelines operators now have," Suri told Reuters in an interview ahead of the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona this week.
A year ago, operators were saying 5G rollouts would be big maybe at the back end of 2019, he noted. "Now, it has accelerated by almost a year, which is good news for the sector, because then they'll be the next wave of investment coming and we can base our timelines now `off of knowing this."
Nokia said on Sunday it had struck a partnership agreement with China Mobile - the biggest mobile operator globally by subscribers - to develop new 5G networks for industrial uses across the world's most populous country. Europe, however, so far lacks the catalysts for rapid, large-scale 5G rollouts, he added.
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