China Mobile awarded construction contracts for two 5G networks valued at nearly CNY7.8 billion ($1.1 billion), with Huawei to build more than half the base stations between 2023 and 2024, and small shares going to Ericsson and Nokia, C114.net reported.

The first project covers about 63,800 base stations using 2.6GHz to 4.9GHz spectrum and the second 23,141 in the 700MHz band in a joint effort with China Broadnet.

C114.net estimated Huawei won contracts worth CNY4.1 billion, involving about 45,000 base stations or about 52 per cent of the total.

Based on the news portal’s calculation, ZTE secured a near 27 per cent share valued CNY2.1 billion; Ericsson 8.2 per cent (CNY630 million); Datang Mobile 7.1 per cent (CNY550 million); and Nokia 5.2 per cent (CNY400 million).

In March, China Mobile said it planned to add 260,000 5G base stations this year for a total of 1.6 million.

The China Mobile deal comes at a time when Huawei is focused on its domestic market in the face of ongoing US trade sanctions, which curbed its smartphone business and 5G deployments in many countries.

Huawei won a 57.3 per cent share of a CNY37.1 billion 5G contract China Mobile awarded in 2020, with ZTE taking 28.7 per cent.

The vendor later took a 55 per cent share of a joint China Unicom and China Telecom standalone 5G network contract worth CNY32.3 billion, with ZTE awarded 33 per cent, Ericsson 10 per cent and Datang Mobile 2 per cent.