Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., ZTE Corporation and Alcatel- Lucent shared the CNY 27.9 billion CDMA equipment contracts from state-owned telecommunications operator China Telecom.

China Telecom, which was encouraged to take over the CDMA network from China Unicom in the nation's telecommunications industry regrouping, unveiled the result of its bidding invitation for CDMA equipment on August 20 in a statement. Huawei and ZTE, two leading telecommunications equipment producers in China, both won about 40% of the orders, followed by Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), with approximately 20%, according to the statement.

In addition, Fujian Fujitsu Communication Software (FFCS) also got part of the contracts.

China Telecom revealed previously that it would pump at least CNY 80 billion into its newly-acquired CDMA network in the following three years. It kicked off the first round of bidding for CDMA equipment in July 2008, two months after the nation released its telecoms industry revamp plan.

In this round of bidding invitation, the telecoms carrier concentrates on access network and core network that may cost not less than CNY 16 billion. Luring roughly 50% of the access network contracts, ZTE turned out to be the No. 1 winner this time, followed by Alcatel-Lucent with 20% or so. The other orders went to Huawei, AsiaInfo Holdings, Inc. and FFCS. Notably, Tencent Holdings Limited, a popular IT company in the nation, was licensed to act as the telecoms operator's nationwide WAP portal.

ZTE got contracts to operate short message centers (SMSC) in 12 provinces across the nation and Internet short message gateways (ISMG) in 10 provinces. Moreover, it was entitled to run China Telecom's three nationwide platforms including ISAG Router, ENUMDNS and mobile positioning system.

Besides SMSCs in 11 provinces and SMSGs in 15 provinces, Huawei got orders to run the telecoms operator's business releasing center, MMS inter-working gateway, KJAVA downloading center nationwide as well as MMS inter-working gateway in 10 provinces.

Notably, China Telecom executives earlier claimed that the company would not completely accept Huawei's super-low offer of CNY 600 million, in a bid to maintain a fair competition.

As for Alcatel-Lucent, it won 50% of the orders for WAP gateway, 20% of the MMS centers, and 30% of the ISMP and ISAG in 10 northern provinces. It held an around 22% share of China's CDMA market in 2007.

(USD 1 = CNY 6.84)

Source:SinoCast