(Adds details, background, market share)
By Supantha Mukherjee and Anne Kauranen
STOCKHOLM/HELSINKI, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Nokia has
clinched a deal with Britain's biggest mobile operator BT
to supply 5G radio equipment, the Finnish company said on
Tuesday, in one of the first major wins under new CEO Pekka
Lundmark.
The deal will make Nokia BT's largest equipment provider and
comes just months after Britain said it would ban China's Huawei
Technologies from next-generation 5G telecom networks.
The size of the contract was not disclosed.
Nokia has won 63% of the BT contract, or about 11,600 radio
sites, a source familiar with the matter said.
Nokia currently powers BT's network in Greater London, the
Midlands and rural locations, but the new contract will add
multiple towns and cities across the United Kingdom.
BT Group CEO Philip Jansen said the agreement would allow it
to continue the rollout of fixed and mobile networks, with
digital connectivity critical to the UK's economic future.
Under the current ban, UK operators will not be able to
purchase 5G components from Huawei from the end of this year and
must remove all existing Huawei gear from the 5G network by
2027, offering opportunities for for Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson
.
Nokia had a 21% share of the global radio access network
(RAN) market in 2019, versus 29% for Ericsson and Huawei's 31%,
according to data from Moody's.
While Nokia has been winning contracts from operators across
the world, it suffered a setback earlier this month when it lost
out to Samsung Electronics on a part of a contract
to supply new 5G equipment to Verizon.
Nokia is under new management with Lundmark taking the top
job last month and telecoms veteran Sari Baldauf becoming the
chairwoman in May.
(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm and Anne Kauranen
in Helsinki; editing by Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan)