Malaysia’s U Mobile signs MoU’s with Huawei and ZTE for 5G network rollout
Malaysia’s second 5G network operator, U Mobile Sdn Bhd has signed separate memorandum of understandings (MoU’s) with Chinese technology leaders Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corporation to facilitate the implementation of Malaysia’s second 5G network. U Mobile has invested over RM8 billion in its network and technological infrastructure, with over 10,000 network sites. DNB, the country’s first wholesale 5G network, selected Ericsson as its network equipment provider.
U Mobile chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan said Huawei will be responsible for deploying the 5G network in Peninsular Malaysia, while ZTE will manage the rollout in Sabah and Sarawak. “We are pleased to formalize our vendor agreements with Huawei and ZTE, two of the world’s leading 5G technology providers. The vendor selection process was conducted in a transparent manner to ensure we chose the most suitable technology partners to support our ambitious goals,” Tan said in his speech at the signing ceremony in Putrajaya. “Huawei and ZTE are no strangers to U Mobile. Having been our long-term infrastructure partners, they have a proven global deployment track record, hence, we are looking forward to pivoting our business together,” Tan added.
U Mobile chief technology officer Woon Ooi Yuen said the selection process began last year with invitations to tender issued to network equipment and software providers from various regions. “Ultimately, only two Chinese companies responded to our 5G tender and we are delighted to work with Huawei and ZTE on this significant endeavor. Apart from their global technology track record, they have also shared vision for an efficient and rapid rollout,” Woon said.
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From left: Huawei M’sia CEO Simon Sun, Huawei president of Apac Terry He, U Mobile CEO Wong Heang Tuck and chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Communications Ministry Deputy SecGen (Telecommunications Infrastructure) Mano Verabathran, Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil, China’s Industry & IT Ministry Party Secretary Li Lecheng, Chinese Ambassador to M’sia Ouyang Yujing, U Mobile deputy CEO Kenneth Chang, ZTE vice president of marketing & solutions for Asia & CIS region Bai Yang, and ZTE Malaysia Managing Director Steven Ge.
NSTP/ASWADI ALIAS
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U Mobile chief executive officer Wong Heang Tuck said the company is targeting to achieve 80% 5G network penetration within 12 months of its rollout, which is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year (2H25). He said the goal is expected to be achievable through the appointment of Huawei and ZTE as strategic technology partners for the implementation of next-generation 5G networks in the country.
“Huawei and ZTE will play a key role in helping U Mobile meet its network expansion targets. We aim to achieve 80% coverage in populated areas within the first 12 months of rollout and subsequently reach 90% coverage in the following 12 months,” he said during the press conference.
Wong said this move aligns with U Mobile’s overall strategy to accelerate the adoption of 5G and 5G-A technologies in Malaysia, with a strong emphasis on supporting the enterprise sector. The signing with Huawei today was witnessed by Communications Minister Datuk Fahmi Fadzil, Tan, party secretary of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Li Lecheng and Huawei Asia Pacific president Terry He. U Mobile reaffirmed that it remains committed to going for a public listing, though it cautioned that timing would depend on global market conditions which are in an “upheaval state today,” Wong said.
The separate MOU with ZTE was approved by U Mobile’s Fahmi, Li Lecheng, Tan and Bai Yang, ZTE’s vice president of marketing and solutions for the Asia and CIS Region. Separately, the ZTE Privacy Protection White Paper (2025) was released today. The White Paper offers a systematic and comprehensive overview of the company’s achievements in privacy compliance, spanning privacy protection policy, framework, co-building, and practical implementation.
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Backgrounder:
The Malaysian government announced its dual 5G network model in May 2023 to ensure competition, better quality of service and wider coverage, especially in underserved and remote areas. It committed to allowing the construction of a second wholesale network once the DNB network reached 80% coverage. U Mobile was appointed by the government to deploy the second 5G network in November 2024, winning out over larger and more established telco rivals such as CelcomDigi and Maxis. Industry observers considered this a controversial choice. U Mobile is the smallest operator in Malaysia, raising questions about its ability to build a 5G network to rival DNB’s.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) issued the official letter of award to U Mobile more than two weeks ago, paving the way for the construction of the country’s second 5G network.
The choice of the Chinese vendors was somewhat controversial in light of Western sanctions against them. In September 2023, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim sparked controversy when he said that the decision to allow a second wholesale 5G network would allow for “more effective participation by Huawei.” Ibrahim argued the construction of a second 5G network was made so that Malaysia could benefit from different technologies. “We in Malaysia, and I believe rightly, decided that while we get the best from the West, we also should benefit the best from the East,” he said.
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U Mobile’s other MoU:
Last week, U Mobile announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with EdgePoint Infrastructure to become one of its preferred partners for 5G in-building communications (IBC) infrastructure. U Mobile will leverage EdgePoint’s expertise for its 5G IBC infrastructure rollout, with plans to collaborate on 5G IBC innovations Both parties will also seek to achieve the most cost-effective rapid rollout through a competitive commercial offer.
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References:
U Mobile picks Chinese giants Huawei, ZTE for 5G network rollout
U Mobile to roll out 5G network with Huawei, ZTE; sees ‘similar’ rates to DNB
U Mobile collaborates with Huawei, ZTE for 5G infrastructure rollout
U Mobile picks Huawei and ZTE to deploy Malaysia’s second 5G network
U Mobile Names EdgePoint as a Preferred 5G IBC Infrastructure Partner for Its Upcoming 5G Rollout
Malaysia’s Maxis agreement with DNB to provide nationwide 5G services
TM and ZTE Malaysia to develop next-gen hybrid cloud 5G core network
Malaysia’s DNB to offer free 5G services to telcos during initial rollout
TM and ZTE Malaysia to develop next-gen hybrid cloud 5G core network
Momentum builds for wireless telco- satellite operator engagements
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The refusal of European government administrations to evict Huawei frustrates the bosses of Ericsson and Nokia, the Nordic vendors that would most obviously benefit from it. Börje Ekholm, Ericsson’s CEO, was critical of the Swedish government’s decision to ban Huawei from its 5G network in late 2020. That was probably because he feared Chinese reprisals would hurt Ericsson, whose China revenues fell 46% in 2021. More recently, however, Ekholm has grumbled about the probability of losing market share in some parts of the world to aggressive Chinese rivals. Earlier this month, he sounded doubtful that new opportunities to replace high-risk vendors in Europe would ever materialize.
But Justin Hotard, who succeeded Pekka Lundmark as Nokia’s CEO in April, struck a more optimistic tone last week. “I think that’s significant,” he said on a call with reporters, referring to Virkkunen’s desire to clamp down on high-risk vendors. “We see that as an opportunity for us given our market position.”
Nokia did, notably, land a contract last November to replace Huawei at about 3,000 of Deutsche Telekom’s 5G sites in Germany – roughly 8% of the RAN total, according to data the operator included in its capital markets day presentations last year. The deal was a long time in the making and is curious given that Deutsche Telekom opposes efforts to evict Huawei. But the introduction of a third RAN vendor could seem prudent. German authorities, under mounting domestic, EU and US pressure, might always decide on a tougher approach, as the UK previously did.
The longer they and other countries resist, the worse things could be for Ericsson and Nokia. RAN sales flattened year-over-year in the first quarter of 2025, after steep drops in 2023 and 2024 that lowered annual revenues last year by more than a fifth, to about $35 billion, compared with the figure in 2022, according to the analyst company Omdia. This year, Omdia expects “low single-digit percentage growth.” But market share gains would put the Nordic companies in a much healthier position, and meaningful gains could only come at Huawei’s expense, unless Ericsson and Nokia were trampling over each other’s turf.
Job cuts shrank the size of the Nokia workforce from about 86,700 employees in 2023 to 75,600 last December, and the axe has fallen heavily on mobile. In a restructuring that harks back to an earlier era and could precipitate further cuts, Nokia is moving several corporate functions outside individual units and into a group-wide layer. Additional cuts within mobile would now be hard to realize without hurting critical research and development activities.
Ericsson, while in stronger RAN shape, is also fighting market stagnation made worse by US tariffs and the weakness of the US dollar. It looks unhealthily reliant on American business, generating 44% of its second quarter revenues in the US. Work in India has seemingly dried up, following a frenzied deployment of 5G networks, and China revenues fell by 37% year-over-year for the recent second quarter, to about 2.2 billion Swedish kronor ($230 million). To protect margins, Ericsson cut about 6,000 jobs last year, or 6% of its total workforce.
Telcos, which have not profited from 5G, are in no mood for early Huawei swap-outs that would gobble funds. The biggest opportunity for other vendors seemed to be a Vodafone RAN tender encompassing 170,000 base station sites across Europe and Africa, according to the operator’s annual report last year. But Vodafone’s sale of businesses in Hungary, Italy and Spain, and the exclusion from the tender of joint network ventures in the UK and the Netherlands, are likely to have dramatically lowered that number.
Whether or not Huawei deserves its EU and US blacklisting, the danger is that Europe’s continued reliance on it further weakens Nokia’s mobile networks business. Added to Europe’s other negatives, it could ultimately persuade Ericsson to follow the journey of the similarly named Leif Erikson, the Viking thought to have sailed to America more than 1,000 years ago. A relocation of headquarters from Sweden to the US was threatened by Ekholm last year. For a region increasingly short of big companies with global influence, that would surely be a disaster.
https://www.lightreading.com/5g/europe-s-love-of-huawei-is-crushing-ericsson-and-nokia