Huawei reports strong growth, not barred by German regulator's new rules

Huawei has so far signed more than 60 commercial 5G contracts with mobile network operators (MNOs) and shipped more than 400,000 5G massive MIMO (M-MIMO) active antenna units – this figure is predicted by the company to rise to 600,000 by the end of this year. The company has also announced that its consumer business’s smartphone shipments exceeded 185 million units in the first three quarters of 2019, up 26 per cent year-on-year, with rapid growth also seen in other areas such as PCs, tablets, wearables and smart audio products.

In related news, Reuters has reported that draft rules published by the German federal network regulator, BNetzA, that will set out the security requirements for the operation of telecommunications systems, are not targeted at specific vendors but will require them to guarantee that no information is shared with foreign governments.

Dmitry Kurbatov, CTO at Positive Technologies (a cyber security company), said: “Despite the controversy which continues to bombard the headlines, banning a telecoms vendor as major as Huawei in the launch of 5G would result in a massive cost for most countries. The reality is that Huawei is already embedded into the 5G ecosystem, mainly because many mobile network operators have already purchased or ordered Huawei technology. In Germany’s case, all major operators are already using Huawei equipment.