Vietnam’s 5G buildout awards new radio and antenna contracts to Huawei and ZTE, reshaping procurement dynamics, testing Western security assumptions and giving global investors a live barometer of shifting regional technology alliances.
Vietnam’s national 5G rollout enters a defining phase as Chinese telecommunications groups Huawei and ZTE secure infrastructure contracts together worth more than $40 million for the current deployment cycle, according to analysis from Sunnov Investment Pte. Ltd. For regional investors tracking capital flows into digital infrastructure, the new awards are emerging as a test of how trade policy, pricing and network security concerns shape decision making in one of Asia’s most closely watched markets.
In the assessment of Thomas Gardner, Director of Private Equity at Sunnov Investment Pte. Ltd., the Vietnamese contract sequence represents “a rare, real-time illustration of how commercial pressure can bend procurement preferences in a strategically sensitive industry for global allocators watching the region”.
Huawei’s consortium now holds a 5G equipment agreement valued at about $23 million for the present rollout phase, signed in April shortly after Washington announces new tariffs on a defined basket of Vietnamese exports. Procurement data indicates that the contract gives Huawei a foothold in radio access network buildout, even as core network tenders continue to exclude Chinese suppliers.
ZTE builds on that opening with two antenna supply awards together exceeding $20 million. The first publicly disclosed agreement is signed in September, roughly one month after the tariff announcement, with a second allocation following in recent weeks as Vietnamese operators lock in hardware for the next wave of base station construction. Gardner views the combined Huawei and ZTE footprint as “the opening chapter of a longer contest for radio access share in a market that has historically leaned towards European vendors”.
For more than a decade Vietnamese network operators favour Western suppliers such as Ericsson and Nokia for core network architecture, reflecting security sensitivities and a desire to balance relations with Beijing. The new set of awards introduces a practical rebalancing. Chinese vendors remain outside the core, yet their entry into radio and antenna layers signals a pragmatic willingness to separate political concerns from commercial realities within specific parts of the stack.
American tariffs on selected Vietnamese export categories, introduced during the late summer, are reshaping those commercial realities. Internal modelling cited by market strategists suggests that the measures could affect the equivalent of approximately 10% to 15% of Vietnam’s gross domestic product on an annualised basis over a twelve-month period if fully applied, while Vietnamese executives highlight Chinese hardware price points around 30% below comparable Western offerings across tender processes completed over the preceding twelve months.
For policymakers in Washington and European capitals, the contracts become a focal point in debates over the security of next generation networks. Concerns concentrate on the risk that Chinese suppliers operating under China’s National Intelligence Law may be required to assist state intelligence activity, raising questions about data privacy, network resilience and potential backdoor access.
Vietnamese regulators and operators explore technical approaches that ring fence sensitive data from foreign supplied equipment, including strategies that attempt to isolate Chinese hardware from critical network functions. Telecoms engineers and security specialists, however, stress how 5G architectures blur the historic distinction between core and radio layers, which makes such isolation challenging in practice. Gardner notes that “investors following digital infrastructure globally are watching whether these experiments in architectural segmentation can keep pace with the complexity of modern software defined networks”.
From an investment perspective, Sunnov Investment treats the Vietnamese 5G contracts as a forward-looking indicator rather than an isolated case. The shift shows how middle-income economies respond when geopolitical partners introduce new trade frictions that squeeze export driven growth models. Gardner argues that “Vietnam offers a live case study in how governments recalibrate when choosing between price, performance and political alignment in critical infrastructure decisions”.
As further spectrum auctions, tower deployments and technology transfer agreements move forward, the research team continues to monitor how Vietnamese decision makers balance shorter term economic relief with longer term security partnerships. The evolution of these contracts provides a signal for institutions modelling cross border capital allocation into Asian digital infrastructure and evaluating how policy risk, supply chain resilience and technology sovereignty considerations intersect in practice.
About Sunnov Investment
Sunnov Investment serves accredited investors, foundations and endowments worldwide as a Singapore based investment manager founded in 2012. The firm focuses on long only equity portfolios and complements them with specialist long or short equity, global macro, event driven and systematic strategies targeting differentiated return streams, while the business also develops structured channels that allow eligible retail investors to participate within appropriate regulatory frameworks.
Website: https://sunnov.com
Media enquiries: Deng Hui, d.hui@sunnov.com
Registered business name: Sunnov Investment Pte. Ltd., UEN 201225494E.
