The move came after an Israeli foreign ministry official was quoted by the Haaretz newspaper as saying the Swedish government would oppose further sanctions to protect a deal between the telecommunications group, Ericsson, and the mobile operator, Irancell.

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"It is only the surface that has been scraped for metals around the world, " said Magnus Ericsson, a senior partner at Raw Materials Group, a Solna, Sweden-based consultancy.

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By supplying many of the state-owned enterprises in China, the retired army officer has built Huawei into the world's second-largest vendor of mobile network equipment behind Sweden's Ericsson, according to market research firm Dell'Oro Group.

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At the time cellular calls flitted from tower to tower under an electronic protocol later known as GSM (global system for mobile), a group effort whose three progenitors--Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola--had pooled their patents and didn't charge one another any royalties.

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Weinberger, who used to head Siemens' wireless semiconductor group, says his old employer, along with Nokia, Ericsson and others, can instead simply buy Sandbridge chips and advertise "every mode" phones.

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Ericsson, which had 35%, according to research firm Dell'Oro Group Inc.

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