ZTE Gets Rare Good News in Telenor Tie-Up 内外交困的中兴获Telenor青睐

By newsdoug on May 6, 2011

Telecoms equipment maker ZTE (HKEx: 763; Shenzhen: 000063) has taken quite a number of body blows these days, both at home and abroad, but is determined to show it still has some fighter left in it. In a rare piece of good news for the company being sued by both global giant Ericsson (Stockholm: ERICb) and hometown rival Huawei, ZTE has landed a deal to be the primary provider of equipment to upgrade Telenor’s VAS platforms in its home Nordic markets. (company announcement) For those non-techies out there, VAS means the platforms that provide such popular services as SMS, voice mail and location-based services. In other words, this looks like a fairly substantial contract in an important market for one of the world’s top telcos. It’s interesting to note that the deal doesn’t seem to involve more substantial telecoms equipment, which means that European telcos may still be taking a wait-and-see approach to new deals with ZTE until its Huawei and Ericsson lawsuits, both filed in Europe, are settled. But in the meantime, it’s good to know that ZTE is still making products that big names like Telenor find attractive.

Bottom line: ZTE’s new deal to provide VAS equipment to Telenor is a rare piece of recent good news, but it needs to resolve its lawsuits with Huawei and Ericsson to truly move forward.

电信设备制造商中兴通讯<0763.HK><000063.SZ>近期在国内外腹背受敌，但它决心向世人表明自己仍然具备战斗力。在遭到国际巨头爱立信和国内竞争对手华为的起诉後，中兴赢得了知名跨国电信运营商挪威电信(Telenor)的一项合同，将为後者在北欧本土市场建设电信增值(VAS)业务平台。VAS包括短信、语音邮件和定位服务等热门业务。换言之，能在一个重要市场赢得一家全球顶级电信公司的大单，看来是份颇具分量的合同。有意思的是，该合同似乎并不涉及多少重量级电信设备。这也就意味着，在中兴与华为、爱立信的欧洲官司结束前，欧洲电信商可能依然对与中兴签署新协议抱观望态度。与此同时，中兴仍在制造足以吸引Telenor等大公司的电信产品，这一点令人欣慰。

一句话：中兴获得向Telenor提供VAS设备的合同是该公司最近难得的好消息，但它仍需要先解决与华为和爱立信的官司，然後才能谈得上大步前行。