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Ericsson champions competition with Huawei and ZTE as it reaffirms commitment to Chinese market
- The Swedish telecoms giant wants to avoid potential backlash in China, a major source of revenue for the company
- Huawei is battling Swedish sanctions that bar the company from supplying 5G network equipment to the Nordic nation
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Executives of Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson said it welcomes market-based competition from rivals including Huawei Technologies Co, which is fighting a decision by regulators to exclude the Shenzhen-based company’s equipment from Sweden’s 5G network.
“Confrontation and increasing polarisation will not make the world safer,” Chris Houghton, senior vice-president at Ericsson and head of market for Northeast Asia, told reporters via video call at an event in Beijing on Thursday.
Global efforts to improve telecoms technology have been supported by hundreds of companies over the years, Houghton said, adding that it is impossible to ignore the role that “Chinese innovators” play.
“Anything that restricts competition risks slowing down the industry. Market outcomes should be decided by technical performances on the competitiveness of different solutions,” he said.
Ericsson has been campaigning for months against the Swedish government’s ban on Huawei.
Earlier this week in an interview with Chinese media outlet Caixin at the Boao Forum for Asia, Ericsson president and CEO Börje Ekholm said “geopolitics may jeopardise” the company’s collaboration with Chinese peers, such as Huawei and ZTE, in setting unified global standards in the telecoms industry.
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