Ericsson, the company that makes the network equipment that powers AT&T’s network, and who accidentally sent the installation instructions in Swedish rather than English thereby explaining why their network sucks so much, reported their Q4 2009 numbers yesterday and as expected they were brutal. Operators in Western Europe and North America are not buying network equipment, the ones who are in Asia and several emerging countries are buying from Huawei, and Nokia Seimens Networks has admitted, several times, that the current price war between all three vendors is so bloody that it can’t continue.
Profits in Q4 09 are down 94% compared to Q4 08, from 3.9 billion Swedish kronor ($538.7 million) to 314 million Swedish kronor ($43.4 million). Full year profits are not looking any better, down 67% to only 3.7 billion Swedish kronor $512 million. With lowered profits come pink slips, and while Ericsson has already been cutting during the course of 2009, over 900 people in December alone, they’ve announced that they’ll be an additional 1,500 people. Said positions will not be from the recently acquired Nortel Networks.
Happy New Year indeed.
[Via: The Canadian Press]