According to ABI Research, the top cellular infrastructure suppliers are Ericsson with almost 29% market share, Nokia-Siemens with more than 23% and Alcatel-Lucent at about 13% — but the company to watch is Huawei despite having less than 8% market share.

Problems at Alcatel-Lucent, including the completion of major network upgrades by Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless, combined with massive growth expectations in Chinese markets indicate that Huawei could soon be on its way to market leadership, ABI analyst Nadine Manjaro wrote.

Huawei could also capture market share in India and Africa, where some markets may move quickly to construct cutting-edge technologies such as WiMAX networks.  So the company fared well on ABI’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats test.