Ericsson’s net sales fall 38% in South East Asia, Oceania and India in Q1 2024

Ericsson Tuesday reported a 38% year-over-year decline in net sales, from 13.9 billion SEK in Q1 2023 to 8.6 billion SEK in Q1 2024, in market area South East Asia, Oceania and India.

An Ericsson spokesperson said that India remains the second-largest market for the company, contributing 10% of global sales in the January to March quarter of 2024.

This is even as the vendor’s sales declined in India after a record 2023, “as the market started transitioning to more normalized investment levels,” Ericsson said in its earnings report. It has commercial 5G radio deals with India’s top two telecom operators Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.

Both telcos also have commercial 5G radio deals with Ericsson’s Finnish Nokia, and are said to be working with South Korea’s Samsung, as well as, US-based Cisco for their fifth-generation networks.

Reliance Jio is reckoned to have crossed the 100-million mark of pure 5G users at March-end while closest rival Bharti Airtel has ended the fiscal fourth quarter with nearly 75 million 5G subscribers, on the back of rapid pan-India rollouts, ET reported in its April 2 edition.

In market area South East Asia, Oceania and India, sales adjusted for comparable units and currency decreased by 37% year-over-year.

At an overall level across markets, Ericsson reported a 15% year-over-year decline in net sales from 62.6 billion SEK in Q1 2023 to 53.3 billion SEK in Q1 2025.

In the Mobile Networks segment, the sales decline was most pronounced in the market area South East Asia, Oceania and India, with a decrease of 42%, Ericsson said in its earnings statement, attributing this decline to primarily a reduction in capex investments in India, after record-high investment levels in 2023, as well as an annual decrease in sales in the Philippines and Malaysia due to timing of project milestones in Q1 2023.

“In Q1, we continued to execute on our strategy to strengthen our leadership in mobile networks, drive a focused expansion in enterprise, and pursue cultural transformation. We maintained our leading market position, but as expected our customers continued to exercise caution with their investments,” said Borje Ekholm, President and CEO of Ericsson.

“Against this tough market backdrop, we delivered solid expansion in gross margins. This underscores the competitiveness of our solutions, our commercial discipline, and our actions on costs,” the chief executive said.

Ekholm said that Ericsson expects a further decline in the RAN (radio access network) market at least through the end of this year, “as customers remain cautious with their investments and the pace of investment in India continues to normalize”.

“In the second half, our margins should benefit from improved business mix. We also remain highly focused on delivering stronger cash flow, based on our operating discipline,” Ekholm said.