Nokia revealed it had 42 commercial 5G deals in place with operators, more than any other vendor has announced, as the pace of the technology’s rollout progresses.

In a statement, the Finnish vendor said 22 of the 42 commercial deals were with named customers including T-Mobile US, Telia and SoftBank.

It noted early 5G rollouts in North America, South Korea and Europe as driving the uptake, and said it expects to announce more deals in emerging nations and areas including India and Latin America over the coming months.

The company’s latest progress update follows an announcement at the end of March, when it said it had 30 commercial 5G contracts. Since then, Nokia said it had won an average of one major contract each week, “with a steady pipeline in place for further agreements”.

Nokia talked up its 5G portfolio as a reason behind its progress so far, adding it believes, cumulatively, it has a “higher share with these customers in 5G than we did in 4G”.

CEO Rajeev Suri (pictured) said that through the transition from 4G to 5G, it was “Nokia’s time to shine”.

“The pace of 5G progress is accelerating across the globe. We are delivering significant performance increases to operators and the power of Nokia’s end-to-end portfolio is being recognised,” he added.

Nokia competes with rival vendors including Ericsson and Huawei for 5G contracts.

However, with Huawei’s security struggles continuing to grow, there is an opportunity for the European companies to capitalise. Huawei CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei said last week a US export ban will reduce a two-year lead it believes it has over Nokia and Ericsson in the next-generation technology.