Ericsson announced today it had signed its 100th 5G commercial agreement. Telekom Slovenije holds the distinction of taking the supplier into triple-digit 5G contract territory.

It's no mean feat. A milestone. It shows that that the Swedish manufacturer is picking up a fair bit of 5G business. (How far that has come at the expense of embattled Huawei is unclear.)

According to Ericsson, the ton-up figure includes 58 publicly announced contracts and 56 "live" 5G networks. Some 5G contracts are clearly bigger than others, however. The number of them won is perhaps not the most accurate barometer of "success." Yet 5G contract numbers are clearly important to suppliers, anxious as they are to claim any sort of bragging rights.

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Only a few hours after Ericsson announced its century of commercial 5G wins, a PR agency for Nokia fired off an email to Light Reading. It helpfully pointed out that the Finnish vendor had 152 5G "agreements," although the definition of agreement here is pretty broad. It includes the likes of trials, pilots and demos.

The PR agency contritely added that the number of "formal 5G deals" signed off by Nokia was 85. As far as Light Reading can determine, the last time Huawei gave an update on 5G contract numbers was February.

Huawei boasted then that it had secured 91 commercial 5G deals, which put it ahead of Ericsson (81 deals).

— Ken Wieland, contributing editor, special to Light Reading