Speaking at Ericsson Shareholder Dialogue, President and CEO, Börje Ekholm, summarized the company's focused business strategy, its financial performance and the measures taken to handle the global pandemic during 2020. He used a meeting to reiterate previous warnings about the need to speed 5G deployments in Europe or risk lagging the US and China.
Ekholm explained Europe was coming from behind on 5G because of a legacy lag from 4G, and explained political action is needed to speed deployments of the next-generation tech. “Of course, Europe will benefit from applications developed on top of 5G networks, but these applications will be created where the networks are first deployed,“ Ekholm explained. “Thus, this is a question of future job growth. One example is that Europe was 2-3 years behind North America and China in deploying 4G and today we see very few digital champions in Europe.“
Ekholm’s focus on 5G has been a key theme so far in 2021, with the executive already warning of a lack of incentive for operators to deploy the technology and a knock-on effect for the region’s industry and economy. He said that Ericsson will continue to seek the great growth opportunities in the enterprise segment, and explained an acquisition of US edge equipment company Cradlepoint in 2020 was a win-win for our customers since its solutions create new revenue streams for mobile network operators.
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has initiated a formal investigation into Apple, Samsung, and Google regarding allegations that the companies have utilized patented audio technology without authorization.
SES has outlined strategic plans to establish direct-to-device (D2D) satellite manufacturing capabilities and a specialized supply chain within Europe in partnership with Elveo Mobile.
Automated systems and bots now generate more than half of internet traffic, forcing hosting companies to manage performance, security, and infrastructure costs at the same time. Ivan Čačija argues that business users are no longer buying only storage and computing resources, but the availability and performance of their own operations. AI will reshape both data-centre management and infrastructure requirements, while regional providers can compete through local presence, predictable costs and hybrid models. Fastserver sees its partnership with Blackwall as part of a broader shift towards an integrated platform combining infrastructure, security, traffic protection and automation.
