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How Ericsson creates value in a limitless world

  • We have established a leadership position in mobile networks and taken important steps toward building an enterprise business.
  • We are shaping the industry landscape by becoming a platform company, leveraging 5G – the biggest innovation platform the world has ever seen.
  • Key to this will be the accelerated adoption of 5G, AI, edge and cloud technologies, as well as the continued commitment to more sustainable solutions.

Ericsson was founded more than 145 years ago based on the belief that communication is a basic human need. We are committed to providing people with continuous global connectivity, information, and all that flows from this. The spirit and knowledge that digital connectivity creates immeasurable opportunities for society drives us to be a leader in our industry, even as the world becomes increasingly complex. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitalization, and as we look to the next decade, we expect mobile connectivity – and network infrastructure specifically – to become even more universal and indispensable. In fact, mobile technology is not even close to reaching its full potential. In the future, it can deliver profound change across a myriad of areas including healthcare, sustainable energy, innovative manufacturing, and more impactful education.

Ericsson itself has transformed over recent years, with the turnaround of our company since 2017 representing a fundamental reset. We have returned to profitability and strengthened our competitiveness. We have also returned innovation, R&D, and technology to the heart of our business, while never losing sight of operational excellence and, more crucially, our purpose.

Building a culture of ethics and integrity has been and still is a top priority for us. We fully understand that to be an industry leader, market and technology leadership are not enough. We also need to be an ethical leader, operating the company with the highest standards based on integrity. We have taken action to strengthen our culture and implemented more rigorous and effective risk management. We are committed to fostering a culture of openness and are driving our values and expectations deep into the organization.

Reinforcing leadership position in our core networks business

Today, we are at the epicenter of a powerful trend, where anything that can go wireless, will go wireless. Around 50 percent of the world’s 5G traffic is carried over Ericsson’s radio networks and the company is consistently recognized as a leader in network infrastructure and performance. 

We see digital transformation as a global engine to build dynamic, sustainable, and innovative economies that deliver inclusive growth. We have conducted research that demonstrates that increases in a country’s mobile broadband penetration also increase GDP.

5G is scaling faster than any previous mobile generation, and according to our latest Ericsson Mobility Report, global 5G subscriptions will have topped one billion by the end of 2022 and five billion by the end of 2028, despite global economic headwinds.

Aside from mobile broadband, one of the most common consumer 5G services launched by service providers is Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). FWA is an efficient and scalable alternative to wired connections, with investments typically paying off in less than two years.

Ericsson’s 5G portfolio also represents an important step towards realizing the metaverse and other extended reality (XR) use cases. XR applications will demand new system design optimization across the device, connectivity, edge and cloud. And 5G will be crucial to ensure that this new immersive internet can be experienced anywhere and everywhere.

But we won’t stop there.

We are steadfast in our ambition to accelerate the adoption of AI, edge and cloud technologies across our industry. We will do this by building on our position as a major contributor to global standards and a vocal advocate of the open-source ecosystem.

We are also embedding our commitment to a more sustainable future into our core business, doing everything we can to help our industry reach Net Zero. We have developed an innovative approach that helps our CSP customers break the energy curve in their networks, including continuously improving the energy performance of our own portfolio.

Mobile infrastructure is also a unique and fundamental enabler of decarbonization in other industries. For example, Ericsson research has found that ICT solutions can enable a reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions by up to 15 percent by 2030, while being responsible for only 1.4 percent of the global carbon footprint. With emerging technologies such as 5G, AI and IoT, even greater reductions will be possible.

In our Networks business, we continue to invest in technology for performance and cost leadership. We have enhanced and expanded our portfolio and are increasing R&D for the next-generation Ericsson Silicon (ASICs) and Cloud RAN.

Cloud Software and Services is also a strategically important business, and it is helping our customers prepare their networks for the future. Our offerings in this area are fundamental to power today’s mobile broadband services, and even more important for future services such as network slicing, enterprise SLA and XR. We invested early in the cloud native transition, and with 25 live cloud core networks, we are in a position to continue creating value for our customers.  

With cutting-edge software and services on standard IT hardware, we help our customers transition to resilient cloud native core networks, ensure they realize efficient service creation and monetization, and optimize and automate their networks and operations.

Where next? The future vision and opportunity

5G is the first generation of wireless technology that will positively disrupt businesses and enterprises, as much as technologies like 4G have already transformed our personal lives. It is a true platform for digitalizing society.

Our strategy is to extend leadership in our core business of mobile infrastructure while also driving a focused expansion into the highly attractive enterprise space. And it is a strategy built on the strength of our core network business. Through a combination of technology leadership, business resilience, cost efficiency, data-driven operations, and global scale and skill, we will strengthen our share of the global network infrastructure market while creating and growing value on top of the network for our customers, partners, and the wider ecosystem.

This is about a fundamentally new way to monetize connectivity. The market for secure enterprise 5G represents a multibillion-dollar opportunity. What’s exciting is that we won’t create the opportunity alone. Together with frontrunner customers, we are driving a value-creation paradigm shift for the entire industry, defining the next wave of growth.

Executing our enterprise strategy on two fronts

Our strategy to expand into the high growth enterprise segment – which expands our total addressable market to roughly $190 billion by 2025 – is being executed in two areas – each leveraging our strengths in core mobile infrastructure

The first is Wireless Enterprise Solutions, including Wireless WAN from Cradlepoint, where we are a market leader, and Private Networks leveraging our strong radio portfolio.

The second front of our enterprise business is powered by our acquisition of Vonage. With 5G, the network becomes a platform for innovation, in turn giving our customers better monetization models to drive long-term investments in the network.  We are now on a journey to give life to the notion that 5G is the biggest innovation platform the world has ever seen, and we are excited to be the first to create this new market.

It’s all about our people

Our vision of the future is a world where limitless connectivity improves lives, redefines business and pioneers a sustainable future. Our brilliant people are at the centre of this vision. They are the ones who will execute on our strategy and deliver long term value to our stakeholders. As we prepare for new opportunities in a changing industry, the quality, engagement and commitment of our team will be a key enabler of our success as we redefine both our company and our industry.

Related reading

Learn more about our commitment to being Net Zero by 2040.

Learn more about our purpose, vision and values.

Explore how 5G is positively disrupting enterprise markets.

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