Ericsson reported its financials for the second quarter of 2025, revealing growth in the US market and some return from the fallout of its problematic investment in Vonage Holdings.

Ericsson’s Q2 results for 2025 revealed adjusted gross income of SEK 26.9 billion ($2.7 billion) for the quarter, marking a 3% increase year-on-year (YoY).

The company’s net sales grew a modest 2% at SEK 56.1 bn ($5.8 billion), with a -6% change YoY.

Ericsson put the increase down to activity in the Americas market area, among other factors. The Americas made up a higher proportion of net sales at 35%, at an organic growth of 10% YoY for the quarter. Networks were the driver here at 64%, followed by cloud software and services (26%), and enterprise (10%).

In its earnings call, the European giant blamed slim profit margins on recent US tariffs, with CFO Lars Sandström expecting “difficult” results for the rest of 2025 once the EU is hit with a 30% tariff on imports from August.

President and CEO Börje Ekholm remained optimistic, pointing to the “flexibility” offered by its 5G factory based in Lewisville, Texas, which the company completed in spring 2024.

“We are trying to manage the impact with the manufacturing footprint we have. For anything more, we’ll have to look at how the tariffs shape up,” the CEO commented.

The results come a year after Ekholm took the blame for the poor showing of Q2 2024, which came about due to the telecom operator’s failed investment in Vonage Holdings.

The vendor had to write off nearly its entire $6.2 billion investment in Vonage, the initial business decision of which left some insiders baffled.

Whilst admitting to a bad decision, the CEO also pleaded patience last year to see if the company could create “a separate new market for network APIs.”

Network APIs are claimed by some as a possible gateway to the next wave of digital transformation posed by generative AI, private 5G, and real-time analytics.

The problem with the Vonage Holdings investment can be put down to what some analysts see as a lack of obvious synergies with 5G connectivity.

References to both Vonage and network APIs were thin on the ground in this week’s earnings call. With regard to the former, it may be that the discussion from last year’s earnings reports may have put the conversation to rest for a while – although that hasn’t put to rest media reports suggesting that Ekholm may be on the way out of Ericsson.

AI was discussed more in the report, along with the possibilities of network slicing and 5G standalone (5G SA).

While Ekholm noted deployments for 5G SA have so far been limited, the CEO sees opportunities coming from network slicing, with “consumers willing to pay” for the faster speed, higher uplink, and lower latency made possible by network slices.

“I’m rather encouraged by the service innovation that is starting to happen on 5G SA. Are we there yet to point to big revenues? No. But we’re starting to see interest and that is going to drive the need for more radio, mid-band and core,” Ekholm remarked.