NEC and Samsung are forming a joint marketing team in an effort to accelerate the development of the 5G ecosystem. The team will specifically target the European and APAC markets, and will focus on the delivery of IT services and 5G products that will appeal to international telecom providers.

The members of the team will be experts specially trained for the task, with knowledge of NEC’s radio technology and Samsung’s commercial 5G portfolio. They will also be responsible for putting together the sales proposals that will be sent to other companies.

“Markets have increasingly high expectations for the creation of new services using 5G,” said NEC Executive Vice President Atsuo Kawamura. “NEC and Samsung are now working together to approach these advanced markets, and are confident that we can greatly enhance the capabilities that we offer to customers through the provision of optimal 5G solutions.”

Samsung and NEC first began collaborating in 2018, and are currently working to develop new products that will leverage new technology like AI to deliver better communications services. The first of those new products are expected to ship in Japan at the end of fiscal 2019.

The creation of the new team is unsurprising given Samsung’s collaborative approach to new technology. For its part, NEC has conducted 5G trials that involve facial recognition and 8K video with NTT DOCOMO in the past year.