The employee base of the Indian units of ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies has shrunk by around 90% over the last two years with the two Chinese telecom gear makers failing to secure new business, including any for 5G gear supplies, following greater government scrutiny and tightened procurement rules.
“ZTE’s workforce has shrunk close to 150 employees while Huawei has nearly 200 employees currently,” an industry executive familiar with the two firms said. At the end of 2020, ZTE and Huawei had close to 1,000 and 1,500 employees, respectively.
Amid India-China border tensions, New Delhi cited cybersecurity concerns while issuing a directive last year that required all telecom equipment supplies to go through a tighter screening process – to be procured from entities marked as ‘trusted sources’ and deploy gear only marked as a ‘trusted product’.
‘Ops within Ambit of Rules’
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