Ericsson today reported earnings that underline key trends in the mobile network infrastructure market, including the impact of ongoing tensions between China and some Western countries, the supply chain crunch, and growing enthusiasm for enterprise 5G.To get more ericsson news, you can visit shine news official website.

The Swedish vendor, which is increasingly being squeezed out of the Chinese market, reported a $418 million sales decline in the world’s largest country during the third quarter of 2021. CEO Börje Ekholm blamed that loss on retaliatory measures resulting from “decisions Sweden took to exclude Chinese vendors in the build-out of 5G networks in Sweden.”

Ekholm, during the earnings call, told analysts and investors that Ericsson isn’t giving up on winning back some business contracts in China, but warned there will be some “restructuring cost” during the fourth quarter as Ericsson slashes its employee base and operations in China.

The losses were partly offset by growth in Europe and Latin America, “but of course it’s quite clear the loss of sales in China hurts our sales volume in total. And we need to invest more to regain that loss of volume by growing in other markets,” Ekholm said.
Ericsson also encountered some turbulence in the supply chain near the end of Q3, after successfully claiming “very limited to no impact” until that point, according to Ekholm. Shortages of individual components resulted in the loss of some sales and higher inventory, and Ericsson expects this to be an ongoing risk for the company in the fourth quarter.

The vendor entered Q4 with a new, multi-year contract to supply 5G radio access network (RAN) equipment and software to ATT for its mid-band 5G deployment activities. Nokia earlier this year landed a similar contract with ATT.

ATT declined to disclose the value of its contract with Ericsson, but Ekholm noted that Ericsson has secured 5G contracts with ATT, T-Mobile US, and Verizon, and described the contracts as “the largest in our history at Ericsson.”

“Both Ericsson and Nokia will provide radios and baseband units for ATT’s mobility network and most specifically for the radios in this new [C-band] spectrum,” an ATT spokesperson said. Some of those C-band radio deployments are underway as the operator works to activate the service later this year.

Ericsson revealed a new massive MIMO 5G radio for mid-band spectrum near the end of Q3 that David Hammarwall, head of product line radio, claimed to be “the lightest and smallest Massive MIMO radio in the industry.” The AIR 3268 joins other massive MIMO 5G radios Ericsson introduced earlier this year.

Customers are receiving volume shipments of Ericsson’s AIR 6419, which is designed for maximum capacity in high-rise installations, and AIR 3268, which targets mid-to-low rise deployments, is scheduled to reach the market in the first half of 2022, Hammarwall wrote in response to questions.

Ericsson, as of today, has inked 149 commercial 5G contracts with operators and has equipment running in 95 live 5G networks. The vendor also reported 45 5G standalone core contracts to date, including eight which are live today.