Carl-Henric Svanberg, president and CEO of Ericsson, said television will be the main driver in the transformation of telecommunications networks, both in terms of capacity and quality.
Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting in Stockholm, Svanberg said multimedia applications — especially IPTV networks and broadband access — are the main trends within the telecommunications industry, and that Ericsson is well positioned to tap their full potential.
“IPTV will drive traffic and generate more equipment needs as well as exciting opportunities in services and multimedia,” he said.
In this context, the recent acquisitions of Entrisphere and Redback Networks, that of Marconi last year and the public offer to acquire Tandberg Television, have special relevance as they round out Ericsson’s product portfolio with world-leading solutions in the fields of IPTV, optical broadband access and IP routing.
In the mobile broadband arena, Svanberg underlined that HSPA is now a widespread technology, laying the foundation for applications such as mobile TV and mobile office.
This year, three billion people will have a mobile phone and Ericsson expects that figure to grow to four billion before 2010.
Another important trend is telecommunications services, Ericsson’s fastest growing area with an increase of 30 percent in 2006. Today, Ericsson manages networks covering 100 million subscribers.
In this field, Svanberg highlighted Ericsson’s achievements in the rollout of networks, such as the building of Telstra’s HSPA network in Australia in less than 10 months and Vivo’s GSM network in Brazil in 103 days.
Svanberg said 2006 was a strong year for Ericsson as well as Sony Ericsson, which for Ericsson included strategic decisions such as its acquisitions and the creation of a business unit dedicated to multimedia.
He also underlined the role of telecommunications in economic development and sustainability as it has an important effect on the development of rural areas, as well as on democracy, security and stability of society.