What’s up with… Orange, ZTE, SASE sales

• Orange seals binding deal to take over MásOrange
• ZTE faces massive anti-corruption payout
• The SASE sector is on fire, says Dell’Oro

In today’s industry news roundup: Orange has sealed a binding deal to take full ownership of Spain’s largest mobile operator (by subscriber numbers); ZTE is facing a potentially damaging payout of $1bn or more to settle bribery allegations, according to reports; enterprises are adopting SASE systems as their de facto edge technology, finds research firm Dell’Oro; and much more!

In the wake of the news that Orange’s plan to take full control of Spanish telco MásOrange is set to be reviewed by the European Commission’s competition authorities, Orange has announced it has now signed a binding agreement with Lorca to acquire the 50% stake in MásOrange currently held by the private equity consortium for €4.25bn. Orange and Lorca initially announced a non-binding agreement at the end of October. Orange still expects the deal to close during the first half of 2026 and, once again, stated that taking full control of the operator will “accelerate” its Lead the Future strategic plan and “further strengthen Orange’s position in Spain, the group’s second-largest market in Europe. With full ownership, Orange confirms its long-term industrial commitment in Spain, and its confidence in MásOrange and its management to create value for all stakeholders,” stated Orange. 

Chinese vendor ZTE could pay $1bn, or even more, to settle years-old allegations of  corrupt business practices, according to Reuters. The financial news agency notes that the company is still being investigated by the US Department of Justice over allegations of bribery in multiple markets: The DoJ has been investigating violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) related to ZTE’s business dealings in Latin America, according to sources. ZTE noted in an 11 December announcement to shareholders that it is in “ongoing communication with the United States Department of Justice regarding the relevant matters and will resolutely defend its rights and interests through legal means and other measures.” It added: “The company consistently commits to comprehensively strengthening its compliance system and building an industry-leading compliance framework. The company opposes all forms of corruption and maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward any individuals who may be involved in such activities. The company’s current production and operations remain normal.” ZTE’s share price has dipped by more than 12% over the past five days and is currently trading at 36.84 Chinese yuan on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. For the first six months of this year, ZTE generated revenues of 71.55bn yuan (CNY) ($10.2bn) and a net profit of CNY4.1bn ($583m). 

Enterprises are accelerating their adoption of multifunctional secure access service edge (SASE) systems and cutting their investments in access routers, according to research house Dell’Oro Group. It notes in this announcement that the value of the global SASE sector (which includes access routers as well as SASE platforms) grew by 21% year on year to be worth almost $3bn in the third quarter of 2025, even though spending on access routers dipped by 25%. “Against this backdrop, SASE is increasingly positioned as the default architecture for branch, remote and cloud access as enterprises standardise on a smaller set of cloud-delivered networking and security platforms,” noted Dell’Oro. The research firm’s senior director of enterprise security and networking, Mauricio Sanchez, stated: “Enterprise SASE buyers are no longer asking whether to converge networking and security, but how quickly they can move budgets out of legacy access routers and into platforms that deliver both,” adding that the 21% growth in the overall market, despite the dip in access router investments, “shows how decisively the market is voting for SASE as the long-term enterprise edge architecture.” Zscaler is the market leader but is only one market share percentage point ahead of Cisco in second place, while Palo Alto Networks is the third-largest vendor in the sector. 

Thanks to the ongoing boom in AI infrastructure investments, the value of the global server market soared by 61% year on year in the third quarter of 2025 to an astonishing $112.4bn, according to research house IDC. The value of x86-based server sales in the quarter was $76.3bn, up by 32.8% year on year, while the value of non x86-based servers increased by 192.7% to $36.2bn. “Revenue for servers with an embedded GPU in the third quarter of 2025 grew 49.4% year over year representing more than half of the server market revenue. The fast pace at which hyperscalers and cloud service providers have been adopting servers with embedded GPUs has fuelled the server market growth,” noted IDC in this press release. The top-five original equipment manufacturers (OEMs ) in the third quarter were Dell Technologies (8.3% market share), Supermicro (4%), China’s IEIT Systems (3.7%), Lenovo (3.6%) and HPE (3%), while direct sales by original device manufacturers (ODMs) accounted for 59.4% of the market, up from 45.1% a year earlier. “IDC expects AI adoption [to] keep growing at an outstanding pace as major vendors continue reporting record orders and showing strong backlogs,” stated Juan Seminara, research director for worldwide enterprise infrastructure trackers at IDC. “Hyperscalers and cloud providers are still [forging] ahead with new, large deployments that require much higher compute density. Additionally, we started to see major AI-based research and education projects that will help fuel [a] further growth path in the market,” added Seminara. 

Majority state-owned national telco Nepal Telecom (NT), once the country’s monopoly service provider and still the mobile market leader in the country, looks to be trying to reduce its reliance on Chinese vendors. Its current 4G mobile network is heavily dependent on equipment from Huawei and ZTE, while Huawei also plays a major role in the maintenance of NT’s entire telecom infrastructure. Now, though, NT has the opportunity to break that dependence as it introduces a next-generation mobile network, with plans to manage its 5G procurement programme via “fully independent open bidding” where Huawei and ZTE will be just two of a coterie of infrastructure vendors competing for 5G contracts. The Kathmandu Post reports that NT plans to roll out “an ultra-fast 5G fully independent network in standalone mode”. Rabindra Manandhar, a senior NT spokesperson, stated: “In standalone mode, the 5G network operates entirely on dedicated 5G infrastructure – both the radio access network and the core network – without relying on existing 4G systems.” Meanwhile, Min Prasad Aryal, a director of national regulator the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), stated: “The service provider has the exclusive rights to choose the technology modality it wants to adopt.” Following the usual precedents set in other countries, the subtext of NT’s decision is based on concerns that Chinese technology is some kind of threat to Nepalese national security. In its latest report, the NTA noted that NT has 15.8 million mobile subscribers, giving it a market share of 53.2%, while rival Ncell has 13.9 million mobile subscribers for a market share of 46.8%. 

Orange Money Group, the unit of Orange that is responsible for defining the telco’s mobile financial services strategy for the Middle East and Africa region, has expanded its relationship with Visa. The partners have already launched a virtual Visa card in Botswana, Madagascar and Jordan, and the service has now been launched by Orange Money Côte d’Ivoire. “This launch was a success and perfectly illustrates our shared vision with Visa for a more inclusive and accessible financial ecosystem,” noted Orange Money Group in an announcement that was emailed to the media. “This partnership marks a new milestone in the shared ambition of the two companies: To provide millions of users with a simple, secure and internationally recognised payment solution. Building on the success in these countries, it will be gradually rolled out to new markets, such as Guinea, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo,” added Orange Money Group.

NXP Semiconductor is to exit the 5G power amplifier market and shut down the radio frequency (RF) power production line at its chip plant in Chandler, Arizona, by early 2027 as the 5G infrastructure market shrinks, reports the Phonenix Business Journal. 

– The staff, TelecomTV