Ericsson Appoints Todd Ashton President Of Malaysia And Sri Lanka

• With 17-years’ experience in the ICT industry, Ashton takes on a new role as President for Ericsson Malaysia and Sri Lanka

• Global mobile data traffic doubled between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012, and is expected to grow 12 times between 2012 and 2018, driven by video. Ericsson anticipates similar trends in Malaysia 

• Globally, there were an additional 13 million LTE subscription in Q3 2012 and numbers are predicted to reach 1.6 billion by 2018

Ericsson today announced the appointment of Todd Ashton as President for Malaysia and Sri Lanka as of February 1, 2013. Born in Washington, D.C., Ashton has been based in Sweden since 1998, serving in various executive roles in Ericsson AB.

In his prior role as Global Head of Sales for Ericsson Consulting & Systems Integration, Ashton focused on working with Ericsson customers worldwide to monetize data by implementing new pricing packages enabled by advanced network capabilities, improve customer experience through executing network and service performance improvement programs, and achieve economic efficiency gains through process improvements and network and IT platform consolidations. Ashton has also worked in leadership roles across several portfolios within Ericsson, including IP backbone networks, OSS, BSS, and IP Multimedia software and services.

Ashton expects mobile data traffic in Malaysia to double in 2013, in line with the global trends reported in the recently published Ericsson Mobility Report. The report states that mobile data traffic is expected to grow with a CAGR of around 50 percent (2012-2018), driven mainly by video. This entails growth of around 12 times by the end of 2018. This increase will continue as people increasingly use mobile data in their everyday life.

“It is forecast that LTE population coverage in Asia Pacific (APAC) will increase to 60 percent by 2017, surpassing the global average of 50 percent in the same year. By 2017 APAC will account for around two thirds of the world’s LTE population coverage,” Ashton reveals. “Within South East Asia, Malaysia joins Singapore and the Philippines as early adopters of technology. With the recent spectrum assignment in Malaysia, we expect that several players will launch mobile broadband services based on LTE by the middle of this year, with Maxis already leading the charge.”

LTE is the fastest-developing system in the history of mobile communications in terms of build-out and uptake. LTE is currently being deployed in all regions and will have subscriptions increasing from around 55 million at the end of 2012 to an estimated 1.6 billion in 2018.

Commenting on Malaysians’ appetite for quality high-speed broadband services, Ashton said “With fiber-to-the-home deployments having close to 40 percent take up and household broadband penetration exceeding 65 percent, it is clear that there is a high demand in Malaysia for broadband. As broadband goes mobile, Malaysians will expect good coverage, with higher speeds and better quality of service, which is what our LTE technology will enable. The challenge for our customers will be to have a well-designed and optimized network supported by the latest tools and the most efficient processes. This is where Ericsson has a proven track record, delivering and managing the best performing and most profitable networks in the world”.

“These are truly exciting times for the Malaysian market. I am looking forward to sharing my global experience and continue our effort to develop the networked society for people in Malaysia”.