Huawei Technologies, China's largest telecom equipment maker, has landed deals with two German carriers to sell its products in the country, boosting its presence in the European market.

Shenzhen-based Huawei signed an agreement with IZB, one of the leading IT service providers in Germany, at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover, Germany on Monday. According to the agreement, IZB will use Huawei's Quidway routers in the financial network of the German carrier.

Huawei said IZB found its routers could fulfill "the current and future demand for profitable network operation, even meeting the stricter reliability standards of the financial industry."

The relationship is the latest coup for the Chinese vendor, which is eager to win business with Europe's major carriers.

German business broadband operator Quality Service Communications AG has entered into a strategic partnership with Huawei to use Huawei's next-generation network (NGN) platform and media gateways for its planned VOIP services.

The NGN platform is expected to be set up in May and cover more than 200 cities in Germany.

The growth in the German business saw Huawei's German staff grow from just 10 to 50 last year, said George Xia, managing director of Huawei's German business. He said further growth was expected, particularly in mobile, where he saw opportunities to sell both the third-generation (3G) and second-generation global system for mobile communications (GSM) network infrastructure to European operators.

Rival ZTE Corp., which is based in Shenzhen, also has aggressive international expansion plans, making headway in other main European markets.

(Shenzhen Daily March 16, 2005)