Swedish mobile telecommunications giant Ericsson today reported earnings for the fourth quarter above market expectations against the backdrop of booming worldwide mobile phone use.
The company, which specialises in mobile telephony networks, said net profit leapt to six billion kronor (€662m) in the final quarter of 2004, against just 100 million kronor a year earlier, and that future prospects were good.
The profit gain came amid steadily rising use of mobile phones worldwide, which Ericsson said experienced the strongest increase ever in 2004.
'With 300 million new subscribers in 2004, 27% of the world's population now has access to mobile communications,' Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said in a statement. 'This is exciting for a company with a vision of an all-communicating world.'
Last year saw a 'breakthrough' for so-called third-generation systems, which allow high-speed delivery of multimedia content.
The number of subscribers for the 3G technology Wideband Code-Division Multiple-Access had now passed 16 million, it said. The technology has been introduced in Europe and parts of the Asia-Pacific region last year and rollout plans for 2005 include North America.
Ericsson said it remained confident about slight growth in the systems market this year. 'The traffic growth in the world's mobile networks is expected to continue as a result of new services as well as new subscribers. For 2005 we maintain our view that the global mobile systems market will show slight growth compared to 2004,' it said.
Fourth quarter sales rose 9% with sales in all of its markets higher, except North America.
Sony Ericsson, a mobile handset venture owned jointly by Ericsson and Sony, contributed 2.1 billion kronor to Ericsson's pre-tax profit of 28.398 billion kronor for all of 2004. This compares with a negative contribution of 600 million kronor the previous year.
