In sum – what you could know:
Punchy Q1 outcomes – Ericsson noticed web earnings surge 61% and gross margin leap 48.2% within the first quarter, pushed by booming (probably pre-tariff) community gross sales in North America – offsetting drops in each different area.
CEO shake-up looms – regardless of a superb quarter, with key API-related wins, experiences declare CEO Börje Ekholm faces the exit door as his relationship with main shareholders has soured over his Vonage splurge.
Enterprise shines – robust 20% progress in enterprise wi-fi gross sales, with headline non-public 5G offers with Jaguar Land Rover and SailGP, and powerful traction in key verticals like manufacturing and public security.
Ericsson noticed its web earnings surge by 61 p.c within the first quarter of 2025, ending the interval at SEK 4.217 billion, from SEK 2.613 billion within the year-ago interval. Alongside, its web gross sales had been up three p.c to SEK 55.025 billion (from SEK 53.325 billion); its gross margin rose strongly, too – from 42.7 p.c throughout the first three months of 2024 to 48.2 p.c in 2025. The Swedish vendor put its displaying within the quarter right down to good community gross sales in North America, completely, offsetting declines in different market areas – together with enterprise options, the place enterprise wi-fi gross sales, together with neutral-host and personal networks, however jumped 20 p.c.
Regardless of the efficiency, which has seen its share worth rally upwards, its president, Börje Ekholm (pictured), is tipped to exit the corporate. Final week, Swedish monetary publication EFN mentioned the connection between kholm and 80-percent co-owners Jacob Wallenberg and Fredrik Lundberg, from Investor AB and Industrivärden, that has gone “from pleasant to strained to icy chilly” (in translation). They’re impatient together with his acquisition technique, it writes – and primarily with the corporate’s $6.2 billion long-game buy of US software program agency Vonage in 2021. As Gentle Studying has reported, their ire comes regardless of Ekholm’s “saving” Ericsson, since 2017, by righting its R&D spend, and driving its 5G wins.
Actually, many of the upside in its first-quarter gross sales, forcing it convincingly into the black, is with community gross sales in North America, whether or not to public operators or non-public enterprises. Its EBITA revenue was SEK 6.652 billion (adjusted to SEK 6.933 billion) within the quarter, up 36 p.c from SEK 4.893 billion a 12 months in the past; its EBITA margin was 12.1 p.c (12.6 p.c), from 9.2 p.c. Gross sales within the ‘Americas’ area constituted a couple of third of its complete (SEK 20.8 billion out of SEK 55.025 billion), and rose 26 p.c on the year-ago interval (SEK 16.4 billion). Gross sales slipped in each different area, together with in Latin America – offset within the Americas-count by a fair sharper spike in North America.
Analysts quoted elsewhere put the agency’s outcomes right down to pre-tariff stockpiling within the US cellular business, as effectively. Gross sales within the EMEA area slipped 5 p.c to SEK 14.5 billion; gross sales in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India (counted collectively) fell 16 p.c to SEK 7.2 billion. In the meantime, web gross sales and gross earnings from networks jumped six p.c and 22 p.c within the interval to SEK 35.6 billion and SEK 18.1 billion; the identical from related cloud software program and companies had been SEK 13 billion (down one p.c) and SEK 5.1 billion (up by 5 p.c). Web gross sales and gross earnings for enterprise merchandise had been SEK 5.9 billion (down one p.c) and SEK 3.3 billion (up 17 p.c.)
An actual spotlight, albeit a distinct segment one nonetheless, was the corporate’s efficiency within the enterprise wi-fi phase, protecting wi-fi wide-area community (WAN) and private-network and neutral-host techniques, the place reported gross sales grew by 20 p.c year-on-year, pushed by larger subscription and product gross sales in wi-fi WAN and “progress in non-public 5G and impartial host options”. It highlighted (once more) its contract to produce Jaguar Land Rover’s manufacturing plant within the UK with non-public 5G for “automobile manufacturing with purposes equivalent to imaginative and prescient techniques, IoT, sensors, and manufacturing instruments.”
Writing on LinkedIn, Åsa Tamsons, accountable for enterprise wi-fi options, mirrored: “That is proof of how our enterprise options are driving transformational affect throughout key verticals like public security, manufacturing, and retail. Our staff continues to prioritise our clients’ and companions’ progress and success, even in opposition to an unsure financial backdrop.” She highlighted its work with Jaguar Land Rover, and likewise SailGP and gold mining firm Newmont Company.
Trying on the broader image, Ekholm, probably together with his final monetary evaluate on the firm, famous offers with Telstra in Asia Pacific for the “first high-performing programmable networks”, the large three US carriers for community API fraud detection, and “additional Aduna partnerships” – all of which may be taken as a defence, of kinds, of his report on the helm, and not directly of the Vonage buy. He mentioned: “We prolonged our know-how management place additional and are on observe to supply a portfolio of 130 radios this 12 months that help programmable networks.
“We introduced the primary Asia Pacific programmable community, together with deployment of 5G Superior, with Telstra. We stay assured of our robust place in cellular networks and count on enterprise to stabilise throughout 2025. Within the evolving international commerce panorama and macro volatility, we proceed to deal with controlling what we are able to management and delivering to our clients. We aren’t immune, however we’re resilient, with effectively diversified manufacturing near the client and the pliability to adapt to altering situations over time.”
