Ericsson: eyes on enabling GROWTH at Mobile World Congress 2013

• New solutions for Networked Society focus on superior network quality and performance, improved end-customer experience, and operational excellence
• Vestberg predicts growing subscriptions for LTE; smartphone shipments to exceed 50%; and mobile internet users will exceed fixed internet users
• Announced partnership with SAP to bring cloud-based machine-to-machine solutions via operators to huge mobile enterprise market

At Mobile World Congress 2013, held in Barcelona February 25–28, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) presents a full picture of new products, services and solutions to support its customers in network evolution, process transformation and innovation and capturing growth opportunities.

During its annual press conference at Mobile World Congress, President and CEO Hans Vestberg said: “Our heritage has been to lead the industry through its technology and business transformations. Our journey has taken us with customers from fixed to mobile, then bringing services, and now extending to process transformation across other industries.”

A new partnership with enterprise software powerhouse SAP was announced. The two companies will jointly market and sell cloud-based, machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions and services to enterprises via operators around the globe.  The solutions will be based on a combined software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering from Ericsson and SAP within M2M.

Better connectivity and consumer demands are together driving continuous innovation in the industry. Vestberg identified main trends for 2013 that add up to more possibilities everywhere with increased intelligence in devices, along with the drive to transform networks, processes, and OSS and BSS systems. At the foundation is a continued desire from consumers for superior network quality and performance.
 
“By the end of 2013, more than 50% of phone shipments will be smartphones, driven by more affordable models,” predicted Vestberg, noting that users appreciate having apps and data seamlessly available on multiple devices. The cross-communication between machines, people, and content is changing the way we as humans behave, and the way service providers do business. Vestberg foresees that the industry will see more pricing models – tiered, shared, and bundled, as well as further expansion into digital services to find new revenues.

“As we have the internet in our pockets, our virtual and real worlds are coming together. Online interaction enriches our living, working and entertainment and breaks down barriers of time and place. By the end of 2013, there will be more mobile internet users than fixed internet users,” he said, adding another prediction that 2013 will be the year LTE subscriptions exceed 100 million.

With its high speed and capacity, an LTE network can enable delivery of high-quality content, especially video, without buffering.  The launch of LTE Broadcast is Ericsson’s new offering for operators and their media partners to capture new revenues, by providing premium services with guaranteed quality and cost-efficient delivery over LTE. Vestberg announced during the press conference that Verizon Wireless and Telstra are already signed on with the solution.

By the end of Q4 2012, Ericsson had supplied more than 60 live commercial LTE networks on all continents. About 50% of all smartphone traffic on LTE runs through Ericsson networks.

An additional proof point of LTE leadership is that Ericsson is supporting Telefónica’s live demonstrations in Barcelona of several complex technologies and behaviors: 4G handover to Wi-Fi, voice over LTE (VoLTE), and integration across several vendors and technology standards.  “This really proves our commitment to our customer, where Telefónica is one of the world’s largest operators with a strategy to meet the growing demands of their subscribers,” commented Vestberg.

Vestberg continued: “Thanks to daily work that our customers entrust us with around the world, we continue to evolve our combined offerings. All our focus is on providing the right technology, services and solutions to our customers so that we together can shape the Networked Society.”

During Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona, Ericsson showcases its combined technology and services leadership for the Information and Communications Technology industry.  Ericsson’s solutions deliver superior network performance in the field, enable complete customer experience management, simplify and automate operations workflows thereby leading to operational excellence.