India will remain second highest earning market: Ericsson Southeast Asia head

New Delhi: India will remain the second-largest market for Ericsson globally, a senior company official said, even as the country’s contribution to the Swedish telecom equipment maker’s global revenue fell to 5% in the quarter. September, from 13% of the year. earlier, due to reduced capital spending by telcos on 5G.

“India will continue to be the second largest market,” Andrés Vicente, senior vice president of Ericsson’s Southeast Asia, Oceania and India market area, said in an exclusive interaction, adding that Vodafone’s entry into 5G will add to this, a Even though its launch may be more gradual compared to Jio and Airtel.

“We are ready to support all operators and believe that 5G will be the most efficient and economical option for them in the future,” said Vicente, in his first interaction with the media after taking over as head of the region in early this year.

He noted that investing in 5G generated 30% spectrum efficiency and cost savings, which will drive telcos to move from 4G to 5G across their networks in the coming years, providing adequate revenue to the manufacturer of telecommunications equipment.

Ericsson recently secured a contract from Vodafone Idea for 4G and 5G deployment. This is part of a $3.6 billion deal announced by the operator on September 22 with Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung, where the equipment makers will supply 4G and 5G equipment to the telco for three years. The economic times reported that the value of the deal for Ericsson was only available $14,000 crore, but the company did not confirm or comment on the value.

“Indian telecom operators (Jio and Airtel) have already rolled out 5G and Vodafone Idea will catch up. With data consumption expected to increase from 29GB to 68GB per user by 2030, operators will need to invest in increasing capacity by adding more sites, densifying the network and adding more bandwidth,” he added.

The 5G game

5G offers significant advances over 4G, especially in areas such as low-latency applications, which are crucial for technologies such as virtual reality, autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things (IoT). Additionally, 5G enables more connected devices, enabling innovations in sectors such as power distribution, environmental monitoring, and industrial automation that 4G cannot support.

Ericsson’s supplies to Vodafone Idea would be made from its Pune factory, operated by electronic equipment maker Jabil, which has been supplying Airtel and Jio. When asked about export plans, Vicente said Ericsson was open to the possibility of exporting 5G equipment from India in the future, but its immediate priority was to support the current 5G rollout for Indian telecom operators.

Regarding monetization opportunities for telcos, he said FWA or fixed wireless access had potential for 100 million connections by 2030, up from 6 million currently.

“Enterprises will also adopt private 5G networks and network slicing to meet their specific needs,” he said, adding that opening up networks to application developers through network exposure and APIs will further drive innovation and monetization. . APIs or application programming interfaces allow the development of applications on networks.

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Vicente said Ericsson was already in talks with operators to adopt GenAI-based dynamic network slicing opportunities that can help them monetize their 5G networks, making Indian telcos among the top operators globally to use innovative technologies.

“I am confident that India will be at the forefront. India is one of the few countries with a large 5G user base and has been vocal about its leadership in technological innovation. The country’s focus on 5G, AI and digitalization aligns with this vision,” he said.

Ericsson will strengthen its R&D investments in India by incorporating 5G network APIs that can be used by industry verticals. On Wednesday, it set up a new R&D team to focus on network APIs at its Bengaluru centre. It also announced a new venture with several global telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, to create and sell APIs globally. The company focuses on innovation by Indian developers and enables them to take their ideas to global markets.