Ericsson delivered its latest financial results this week with third-quarter operations gathering an adjusted gross income of $2.8 billion for the firm, running basically flat sequentially and down 5% from the same quarter last year.

Sales dropped 9% year over year to $5.1 billion in the latest quarter, with net income of $1 billion for the Swedish giant. However, net increase more than doubled year over year to $4.7 billion, partly reflecting liquidity gained from the completed sale of its U.S. subsidiary Iconectiv to Koch Equity.

The European vendor pointed to sales growth in all markets bar the Americas, with that decline put down to high deliveries the previous year.

Strong gains were recorded in India, the U.K., and Japan. CEO Börje Ekholm highlighted recent European success, with Vodafone choosing Ericsson on the same day as its sole radio access network (RAN) vendor across Ireland, the Netherlands, and Portugal. That deal may see an uptick next quarter in the “flat” RAN market Ericsson repeatedly referred to in its Q3 call.

The new Vodafone tie-up follows last month’s VodafoneThree $2.7 billion mega-deal, with Ericsson tapped alongside Nokia by Vodafone’s British arm to expand and upgrade its 5G network infrastructure in the U.K.

Ericsson in APAC

Over in India, the firm recently promised it would locally manufacture all telecom equipment that it sells in the nation. Ericsson also reaffirmed plans to expand the firm’s Bengaluru-based ASIC research and development facility by 150 positions, one of three in the nation working across transport, packet core, cloud, AI, operations support systems (OSS), and business support systems (BSS).

The firm initiated its India 6G project at its site in Chennai back in 2023, and on the 5G front, one of Ericsson’s biggest global 5G deals to date is its partnership with Indian operator Bharti Airtel that was announced in late 2024.

But looking deeper into the Q3 financials, sales declined year over year in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and primarily in India due to reduced network investment levels. This was mentioned by Ekholm, who did point to sequential growth in India.

Overall, India nabbed 5% of all sales in the quarter, beating the U.K. (4%), and China and Japan with 3% apiece.The Japanese market was singled out for driving Northeast Asia sales by 10%, the biggest segment in Asia-Pacific (APAC) for the quarter.

It will be worth watching what the company achieves in Southeast Asia in the next quarter. While that region saw a drop in sales, Ericsson has been firming up its APAC operations, including the Oceania region, with various exec appointments to its South East Asia, Oceania, and India (MOAI) team.

The vendor last week announced a team-up with Australian operator Telstra on an autonomous network initiative, building on the pair’s deployment of what was claimed to be the first programmable, 5G-Advanced network in APAC.

That deal also expanded Ericsson’s autonomous ventures in Asia, following a similar arrangement with Malaysia’s CelComDigi, as well as its extensive work to date with Malaysian telecom operator, Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB).

Malaysian carrier YTL Communications also launched a 5G-Advanced service recently using the Ericsson and DNB infrastructure, claiming to be the first operator in the country to do so.

Recent research from Analysys Mason reported that 5G deployments remain rare in emerging APAC markets, but India is leading the way with 5G accounting for 20.8% of mobile connections in the country by the first quarter of 2024, with Ericsson in a good position to leave its mark.

APIs and AI

Ericsson’s Q3 financial report also touched on APIs, with Ekholm referencing that amid “small” revenues there had been an uptake in its Vonage API business.

“We're exposing to developers the network features through network APIs to drive innovation,” Ekholm claimed. “This will make it possible for Ericsson and our CSP customers to capture an increasing share of the value created from connectivity, which so far, as you all know, has been going to hyperscalers.”

Speaking with Ericsson at its recent OSS/BSS summit in London, it was clear to SDxCentral that the firm believes one of its defining traits compared to rivals like Nokia is its API provision, the building blocks of all agentic AI ambition.

While Vonage didn’t feature at the summit, APIs were the hot topic at Ericsson’s annual showcase, alongside autonomous networks, as spurred by the Telstra investment. That partnership is the latest in Ericsson’s ventures into autonomous networks, which has so far included tie-ups with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Orange Group.

The Orange venture revolved around 5G network slicing orchestration across Europe, touted by Orange as a crucial step towards autonomous networks.

This was something underlined by Erkholm in the Q3 results, who noted AI and AI devices will push operators to invest in 5G standalone (SA) and programmable networks.

“I have no doubt that the new capabilities – call it network slicing, call it low latency, improved quality, and security – will be critical in applications over the next two, three years that will require the operators to build out 5G SA. And by the way, when they have built out 5G SA, they will put themselves on the journey to upgrade to 6G when that happens.," Ekholm said. “6G will be much more AI cloud dependent. … By being in 5G SA, you create the monetization models that will be needed in 6G as well.”