Japanese telecoms giant Softbank is to remove Huawei equipment from its network, replacing it with 4G technology from the Chinese company's rivals.

The telecoms company will turn to Nokia and Ericsson to supply its network infrastructure in place of Huawei, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei.

The decision to replace the base station hardware comes amid mounting security concerns surrounding the Chinese firm, which US security services have claimed represents a spying threat.