India will remain second largest market by revenue: Ericsson Southeast Asia head

NEW DELHI: India will remain Ericsson’s second-largest market globally even as its contribution to Ericsson’s global revenue slipped to 5% in the September quarter from 13% a year earlier, a senior company official said. capital expenditures are gradually decreasing.

“India will remain the second largest market,” Andres Vicente, senior vice president of Ericsson’s Southeast Asia, Oceania and India market area, said in an exclusive interaction. He added that Vodafone’s move into 5G will further intensify This trend, although already launched in the market with Jio and Airtel, is likely to be more gradual.

“We are ready to support all operators and believe 5G will be a more efficient and cost-effective option for them moving forward,” Vicente said in his first media interaction since taking over as head of the region earlier this year.

He pointed out that investing in 5G can improve spectrum efficiency by 30% and save costs, which will drive telecom companies to upgrade their networks from 4G to 5G in the next few years, thus bringing enough room for revenue growth to telecom equipment manufacturers.

Ericsson recently won a 4G and 5G deployment contract from Vodafone Idea. It is part of a $3.6 billion deal announced by the operator on September 22 with Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung, which will see the equipment makers supply 4G and 5G equipment to the telecom company over three years. economic times Ericsson alone is reportedly worth a deal worth around $14,000 crore, but the company did not confirm or comment on the value.

“India’s telecom operators Jio and Airtel have already launched 5G, and Vodafone Idea will catch up. Data consumption per user is expected to increase from 29GB to 68GB by 2030, and operators will need to do this by adding more sites, denser networks and Invest in more capacity by adding more bandwidth.”

5G gaming

5G represents significant advancements over 4G, especially in areas such as low-latency applications, which are critical for technologies such as virtual reality, self-driving cars, and the Internet of Things (IoT). In addition, 5G allows more devices to be connected, enabling innovations in areas such as energy distribution, environmental monitoring and industrial automation that 4G cannot support.

Ericsson’s supply to Vodafone Idea will be completed from the Pune plant run by electronic equipment maker Jabil, which has been supplying to Airtel and Jio. When asked about export plans, Vicente said Ericsson is open to the possibility of exporting 5G equipment from India in the future, but its top priority is to support the ongoing 5G rollout by Indian telecom operators.

On the profit opportunities for telcos, he said the number of FWA or Fixed Wireless Access connections is likely to increase to 100 million by 2030 from the current 6 million.

“Enterprises will also adopt private 5G networks and network slicing to meet their specific needs,” he said, adding that opening up the network to application developers through network openness and APIs will drive more innovation and monetization. APIs or application programming interfaces enable application development on the web.

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Vicente said Ericsson is already discussing with operators the opportunity to adopt GenAI-based dynamic network slicing to help them monetize their 5G networks, making the Indian telecom company one of the leading operators in the world using innovative technologies.

“I believe India will be at the forefront. India is one of the few countries with a large 5G user base and has been leading technological innovation with a high profile. The country’s focus on 5G, artificial intelligence and digitalization is consistent with this vision.”

Ericsson will strengthen its R&D investments in India by introducing 5G network APIs that can be used by vertical industries. On Wednesday, it launched a new R&D team at its center in Bengaluru to focus on web APIs. It also announced new joint ventures with several global telecom companies including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to create and sell APIs globally. The joint venture focuses on innovation by Indian developers, enabling them to take their ideas to the global market.