Samsung, who many of you know for their mobile phones, is also one of the world’s leading suppliers of components. It’s highly likely that there are several chips in your current smartphone that bear the South Korean company’s logo. In fact, Apple is one of Samsung’s largest customers! Looking to expand their business, Samsung has begun a campaign to be taken seriously in Europe as an infrastructure vendor, meaning they want to be the company that an operator can call and say “we need some cell towers, core network equipment, some smartphones, feature phones, and what the hell, throw in some maintenance too!” The list of companies that are currently in a position to do that is very short. There’s Huawei, who is more known for their infrastructure gear, but have recently become increasingly popular due to their budget handsets, and ZTE, who is a controversial infrastructure vendor since some say their gear isn’t up to snuff, but at least they too make super cheap Android smartphones and also provide a wide range of feature phones.
So why is Samsung doing this? IP Hong, Vice President of Marketing at Samsung’s Telecom Systems Business says: “We have the complete package for mobile operators. They need a new vendor in 4G in Europe. We can change the situation in Europe. We are ready to go.” Until recently Samsung didn’t actually sell any gear that supported GSM. This is due to the country where they’re active, South Korea, relying on CDMA. That situation has now changed and Samsung’s equipment does GSM, LTE, WCDMA, WiMAX, and CDMA. Will European operators bite though? Is Samsung going to outbid their competitors and take a loss just so they can establish themselves as credible? We’ll see what happens.
If we were Ericsson or Nokia Siemens Networks, we’d be worried, especially after Everything Everywhere signed a massive deal with Huawei. Operators are indeed examining their options.