Hyun Ju Han

Global Economic News

U.K. telecom firm Vodafone has selected Samsung Electronics as a supplier of 5G telecom equipment, a deal marking Samsung’s entry into the European market following the South Korean giant’s earlier foray into the U.S. and Japanese markets.

Samsung said Monday that it has been selected as the main supplier for Vodafone’s 5G vRAN (virtualized radio access network) business.

Vodafone is the world’s fifth-largest and Europe’s No.1 telecom company, which has 315 million members in 69 countries and regions.

It is the first time that Samsung has landed a 5G telecom equipment deal in Europe. Samsung is believed to have secured the basement for entering the European telecom equipment market, which was dominated by Nokia, Ericsson and Huawei, through this contract.

According to market research firm Dell’Oro, Samsung has 7.2 percent of the global 5G market share and ranks 5th based on last year’s performance. Huawei keeps the No.1 spot with its overwhelming market share (31.7 percent), followed by Ericsson (29.2 percent), Nokia (18.7 percent) and ZTE (11 percent).