China Mobile, the biggest mobile operator in the world, has awarded initial 4G contracts to both Chinese and Western suppliers, but it is Huawei and ZTE that are the biggest winners according to sources cited by Reuters.

Reuters says China Mobile has splashed out around CNY20 billion ($3.3 billion) on TD-LTE equipment, with Huawei and ZTE scooping up more than half the share (about 25 per cent each).

Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and NSN, according to Reuters’ sources, are said to have each secured a share of around 10 per cent.

China Mobile, with a subscriber base of nearly 750 million, says it want to roll out 200,000 base TD-LTE stations this year, providing continuous coverage for the main metropolitan areas in 100 major cities.

The Chinese government has yet to award 4G licences, but China Mobile is nonetheless gearing up its TD-LTE efforts and move away from TD-SCDMA, China’s home-grown 3G standard, in order to compete better against rivals.

Reuters further points out that China Mobile, in H1 2013, spent only a third of its full-year 2013 capital expenditure budget (CNY190.2 billion). That leaves much more scope for 4G spending.

With the prospect of more lucrative 4G contracts from China Mobile – along with China Telecom and China Unicom – western suppliers, fearing that their chances in China might be damaged, have distanced themselves from EU investigations into Huawei and ZTE alleging they have gained an unfair advantage in Europe through illegal state subsidies.

A report from the Financial Times even suggested that the European Commission (EC) was holding back on its controversial trade case against Chinese vendors until China Mobile had awarded 4G contract contracts – a claim later denied by EC officials.

The ramping up of China Mobile’s TD-LTE efforts fuels speculation that Apple will shortly announce a TD-LTE enabled iPhone. China Mobile is the only operator in China yet to ink an official iPhone distribution deal with the Cupertino giant.

Rival China Unicom, which has veered towards FDD-LTE, recently announced its intent to conduct TD-LTE trials in the belief that the government will look favourably on this technology when 4G licences are issued.