Huawei leapfrogs LTE leaders in Europe

SAN JOSE, Calif. – China's Huawei won the lion 's share of the business for LTE macro base stations in Europe last year, narrowly beating traditional leaders Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks who ranked second and third.

Huawei's rise marked a surprising turnaround from 2010 when it sold less than half the number of European LTE base stations as Ericsson, according to a new report by NPD In-Stat. Together, Huawei, Ericsson and NSN accounted for more than 90 percent of the European LTE base station market.

"Almost of half of Huawei’s 2011 success was the result of Huawei’s work with Vodafone in Germany," said Chris Kissel, a senior analyst for NPD In-Stat.

Huawei and China-based ZTE rose to prominence in part on dominating much of the business for 3G base stations in China. Since then Huawei has been vigorously competing for business in North America and Europe.

Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Huawei had roughly similar shares of the Western European LTE base station market in 2011.  In Eastern Europe, however, Huawei dominated almost half the market, NPD said.

The market watcher forecasts that Nokia Siemens Networks will grab the top spot in the European LTE market in 2015 estimated to consist of more than 400,000 LTE installations.  Ericsson is projected to grab the top spot in Eastern Europe that year.

Among other suppliers, Alcatel-Lucent and ZTE are expected to make market share gains in the future.  About 16 percent of deployments in 2015 have yet to have a LTE equipment vendor selected, the company estimated.

NPD In-Stat said Samsung was the leading LTE base station supplier in the Asia last year. However it took less than one percent of the European market in 2011, it said.