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SOUTH KOREA

Ericsson pours funds into South Korea

Swedish phone network giant Ericsson has announced plans to invest $1.5 billion in South Korea over the next five years.

Published: 13 July 2009 09:14 CEST

The plan was disclosed by chief executive officer Carl-Henric Svanberg at a meeting in Stockholm with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak on Sunday, Lee’s office said in a statement released in Seoul.

Ericsson will establish a research centre in South Korea to develop environmentally-friendly and fourth-generation telecommunications technologies with firms in the Asian country under the plan, it said.

The Swedish firm will also increase the number of employees at its South Korean unit from 80 to about 1,000, it said.

President Lee hailed the planned investment as helping the two countries lead the information and communications technology market, it added.

Ericsson is a world leader in high-speed wireless technology using the long-term evolution, or LTE, standard.

South Korea is one of the world’s most wired countries and a developer of high-speed Wireless Broadband (WiBro) technology.

Lee has been on a three-day visit to Sweden since Saturday.

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SWEDEN AND UKRAINE

Ericsson suspends all Russia operations indefinitely

Swedish network equipment maker Ericsson said Monday that it was suspending all of its Russian operations over the war in Ukraine for the foreseeable future.

Published: 11 April 2022 19:42 CEST
Ericsson suspends all Russia operations indefinitely

The telecom giant already announced in late February that it would stop all deliveries to Russia following Moscow’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

“In the light of recent events and of European Union sanctions, the company will now suspend its affected business with customers in Russia indefinitely,” Ericsson said in a statement.

The company added that it was “engaging with customers and partners regarding the indefinite suspension of the affected business.”

“The priority is to focus on the safety and well-being of Ericsson employees in Russia and they will be placed on paid leave,” it said.

READ ALSO: How has Sweden responded to Putin’s war in Ukraine so far?

Hundreds of Western firms ranging from Ikea to Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs and McDonald’s have stopped operations in the country since the invasion, with French banking group Societe Generale announcing Monday it was selling its stake in Russia’s Rosbank.

Ericsson has around 600 employees in Russia, and is a “major supplier to the largest operator MTS and the fourth largest operator Tele2,” a company spokeswoman told AFP, adding that together with Ukraine, Russia accounts for less than two percent of revenue.

As a result, the equipment maker said it would record a provision for 900 million Swedish kronor ($95 million, 87 million euros) for the first quarter of 2022 for “impairment of assets and other exceptional costs,” though no staff redundancy costs were included.
Ericsson is due to publish its first quarter earnings on April 14.

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