* Growth opportunities in industry with mobile broadband
* Envisions 50 billion connections 2020
Ericsson's (NASDAQ:ERIC) President and CEO Hans Vestberg met the shareholders in
his new position for the first time at the Annual General Meeting of
Shareholders in Stockholm. In his presentation, Vestberg gave an overview of
2009 and also acknowledged his predecessor Carl-Henric Svanberg.
Vestberg talked about growth opportunities in the industry and repeated the
company's vision of 50 billion connections by 2020. "Today we already see
laptops and advanced handsets connected, but in the future everything that will
be benefit from being connected will be connected", Vestberg said.
As an example of connected devices, Vestberg was joined on stage by Peter
Håkansson, research engineer, who showed real life mobile health applications.
Håkansson showed how heart monitoring can be done remotely over the mobile
networks and explained the benefits for both patients and society.
Another growth opportunity Vestberg highlighted is the media industry. In 2009,
Ericsson signed an agreement with TV4 Group to operate it nationwide playout
service. Jan Scherman, CEO of the TV4 Group, joined Vestberg over video link
from the TV4 offices. Scherman explained the rational for the deal and how TV4
can focus on content while their technical solutions are outsourced to Ericsson.
Vestberg also stressed the importance to further develop Ericsson's technology
leadership. With 18,300 R&D engineers, Ericsson recently achieved a number of
industry firsts, such as live demo 4G/LTE of 1 gigabyte per second, fastest
microwave backhaul with 2,5 gigabytes, demo of 84 Mbps HSPA.
Vestberg concluded by acknowledging the work done and high motivation by
Ericsson's 82,500 employees around the world. "We have an incredible strong team
at Ericsson and together we will work hard to extend our leadership in the
industry."
Notes to editors:
Bio and photo of Hans Vestberg
Our multimedia content is available at the broadcast room:
www.ericsson.com/broadcast_room
Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom
operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and
provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the
leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile
and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and
multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony
Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich
personal mobile devices.
Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an
all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable
business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 80,000 employees
generated revenue of SEK 206.5 billion (USD 27.1 billion) in 2009. Founded in
1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on OMX
NASDAQ, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.
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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Ericsson Corporate Public & Media Relations
Phone: +46 10 719 69 92
E-mail:media.relations@ericsson.com
Ericsson Investor Relations
Phone: +46 10 719 00 00
E-mail:investor.relations@ericsson.com
UPCOMING EVENTS
Ericsson's Capital Markets Day, Stockholm, Sweden, May 5-6
Ericsson Business Innovation Forum, Shanghai, China, May 17-18
For more information please contact the Ericsson Media Relations Team.
[HUG#1403231]
Press release PDF: http://hugin.info/1061/R/1403231/357552.pdf