Swedish telecom giant Ericsson gets new 5G contract from Bharti Airtel, sources say

Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson has received a new multi-billion-dollar contract for selling 5G equipment from India’s Bharti Airtel, two sources familiar with the matter said.

This comes after Ericsson got part of a $3.6 billion contract last month for selling 5G equipment to India’s Vodafone Idea. It shared the contract with Nokia and Samsung.

The new contracts are expected to boost Ericsson’s revenue next year after seeing a big fall in contracts from India in the first half of the year.

Sales in Southeast Asia, Oceania, and India had decreased by 44 per cent in the second quarter. Ericsson will announce its third-quarter results on Tuesday.

Much of the deployment is likely to happen next year, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Ericsson declined to comment. Airtel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Shares in Ericsson rose as much as 1.8 per cent after the Reuters story.

Demand from the Indian 5G market started to skyrocket in 2023, when sales from the region grew as much as five times, as Airtel and Jio, the telecoms unit of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, started to scale up 5G services.

That demand cushioned a slowdown in revenue from Ericsson’s main US market where telecom operators have been lowering spending.

Global telecom equipment revenue had dropped 16 per cent year-over-year in the second quarter, recording a fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit contractions, according to research firm Dell’Oro.