Europe: Ericsson reports sales drop due to declining network business

Ericsson has reported a decline of 14 percent year-on-year in organic revenues for the first quarter of 2024, posting a revenue of  $4.88 billion. The company blamed this decline largely on a significant slump in its network business, with this division declining 19 percent YoY, to $3.1bn.

The company's CEO and president Börje Ekholm said: "We expect a further decline in the RAN market, at least through the end of this year, as customers remain cautious with their investments and the pace of investment in India continues to normalize. Dell’Oro estimates the global RAN equipment market will decline by four percent in 2024, which may prove optimistic."

During the company's earnings call, Ekholm expressed his desire for the European telco businesses to consolidate and give themselves greater scale. He said: "The industry has a problem with return on investments. And that's why I think we need to see in-market consolidation actually start to happen and start to get approved. When that happens, we will get bigger scale."