In the second quarter the network equipment supplier Ericsson was able to boost its earnings significantly. In quarter-on-quarter terms earnings before interest grew by 12 percent to 9.3 billion Swedish kronor (1.014 billion euros). Sales went up by 8 percent to 47.6 billion kronor (5.194 billion euros), with net earnings rising by 12 percent from 5.7 billion to 6.4 billion kronor (699 million euros). “We continue to outpace the market,” Carl-Henric Svanberg, President and CEO of Ericsson, said. Be that as it may, the stock markets had expected the company to perform better. Like its rivals Ericsson is profiting from the growing demand for telecommunications infrastructure; with demand in the mobile networks area

especially strong.

When compared with the same period of the year before sales of Sony Ericsson’s network segment rose 7 percent to 33.7 billion kronor (3.677 billion euros); mobile systems accounted for 6 percent of the q-on-q increase in total sales of 8 percent. On Wednesday the company had managed to secure a record order worth two billion US dollars from the Indian mobile operator Bharti.

“The total number of mobile subscriptions has now reached three billion, a milestone for our industry,” Mr. Svanberg upon presenting the company’s income statement declared. “GSM shipments reach new record levels every quarter and we continue to see growing demand for mobile and fixed broadband. We see dramatic data traffic increases in the HSPA networks that we monitor,” he added. (Robert W. Smith) via[heise.de]