Jane Chen / Shanghai Daily news

China's largest telecommunications equipment supplier, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, has lost-out in the latest tender for India's largest telecom company, won by its long-time domestic rival ZTE Corporation, in its second setback in India inside two months.
Today's www.sina.com.cn cited overseas media as saying that Huawei and ZTE, both Shenzhen-based companies, had made the final cut of the tender process conducted by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), but that Huawei fell at the last hurdle. 
As a result, ZTE and BSNL will launch a 50-50 joint venture to produce 1 million CDMA, or Code Division Multiple Access, handsets and also wireless fixed-line access terminal equipment.
BSNL is negotiating with ZTE on the small-print and will publish the details later, according to a senior BSNL official quoted in the Sina report.  He said production would be undertaken at a BSNL plant in Calcutta which has recently gained ISO9001 accreditation.
The official didn't disclose the value of the deal, but said the company selected ZTE as its first cooperative partner after studying the latter's tender proposal as well as its profile.  ZTE is China's largest publicly-traded telecom equipment manufacturer and supplier.
This is the second major disappointment for Huawei involving BSNL inside two months. Last month, the Indian company cancelled a 1.05-million-line CDMA supply contract with Huawei, the reason for this not being explored in the Sina report.
Earlier, in August, Huawei's proposed investment of US$60 million to build a software development center in India was shelved by the Indian government out of concerns for national telecom network security, according to earlier Sina reports.
This has slowed down Huawei's plans for expansion there. 
Huawei announced the proposed software center at the beginning of this year, along with a plan to invest a further US$40 million to expand its Indian research and development center.