Vodafone partners with Ericsson and Nokia to invest £2 billion to expand the UK network

According to Zhitong Finance APP, Vodafone Three, controlled by Vodafone (VOD.US), announced a £2 billion ($2.7 billion) contract with Ericsson (ERIC.US) and Nokia (NOK.US) aimed at expanding the network coverage of this newly established mobile operator in the UK. Vodafone Three stated in a press release on Monday that Ericsson won a larger share of the contract, with the Swedish supplier responsible for deploying its Radio Access Network (RAN) at 10,000 sites and upgrading the core network. Nokia will provide its RAN technology for 7,000 sites. This £2 billion, eight-year contract brings much-needed revenue opportunities to these two Nordic 5G equipment manufacturers to cope with the sluggish mobile market. In recent years, operators (especially in Europe) have been postponing expensive equipment upgrade plans. Vodafone Three was formed by Vodafone's UK subsidiary and CK Hutchison's Three, with a commitment to invest £11 billion in network infrastructure construction at its inception. The joint venture received regulatory approval last December. The new company is majority-owned by Vodafone and has now become the largest mobile operator in the UK, with approximately 28.8 million users. This deal is a blow to Samsung Networks, which has struggled to gain significant market share in the network equipment business. Vodafone has particularly supported this Korean supplier and its developed Open Radio Access Network (OpenRAN) technology, which allows operators to mix and match components from different suppliers. Vodafone is launching larger-scale tenders across the European market and emphasizes that Samsung will be one of the participants in this large-scale network deployment in Europe. A Vodafone representative stated in a press release: "Vodafone has selected multiple strategic partners, including Samsung, Ericsson, and Nokia, to jointly build a future-oriented network infrastructure that will cover 15 countries in Europe and Africa." This includes a "large-scale" deployment of OpenRAN in Europe