Ericsson going strong

By Staff Writer for Ericsson
Johannesburg, 24 Apr 2009

Ericsson has grown faster than the market every year since 2003, with an annual growth rate of 12%, the company's CEO and president, Carl-Henric Svanberg, told shareholders during its recent AGM.

Ericsson's 2008 turnover was SEK 209 billion (R225.7 billion) and SEK 1 billion (R1.08 billion) in sales per working day, significantly higher than the SEK 130 billion (R140.5 billion) projected by “opinion-formers”.

Svanberg says: "We are in the process of building the new IP networks and bringing together today's fixed and mobile networks. We're debt-free and by the end of the year we had net cash of SEK 35 billion [R37.8 billion].

“We have basically no customer financing and have extensive cost reduction activities in place. The world is experiencing turbulent times, but Ericsson is strong," he adds.

Driving change

According to Ericsson, four billion people have mobile telephony worldwide, but not even 10% have mobile broadband. While the world economy is expected to increase threefold by 2050, governments have a target to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by up to 50% during the same period, adds the company. It says it plans to drive energy efficiency in light of this.

"We're now building mobile networks in the UN's Millennium Villages, where the poorest of the poor live. We can already see the huge importance the networks are having on development and that this is good business for operators even in these parts of Africa," says Svanberg.

Ericsson held its annual general meeting in Sweden on 22 April, when Michael Treschow was re-elected as chairman of the board of directors.