Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) (NASDAQ:ERIC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Börje Ekholm: Well, if you look at the current model in Vonage, you have both on a subscription-based model, that’s the UCaaS, CaaS solutions, but you also have a transaction model on the CPaaS. Over time, as we launch now the new part, call it the network APIs, there are still more work to be done on the business model. So right now, the focus is to make sure that we technically solve the issues and that we can actually present those type of network APIs on the CPaaS platform. And that’s why I said, you’ll see announcements during the year. And hopefully, we can start to display also the business model that we intend to see there. But so far, we need to continue the work we’re doing together with our operator partners to be able to launch those APIs and show them to the market. So stay tuned for announcements on that, Andreas.

Andreas Joelsson: Perfect. Thanks.

Peter Nyquist: Thanks, Andreas. Thanks for that question. So we will move further with the next question. And I’ll have the next question from Sebastien Sztabowicz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Hello, Sebastien.

Sebastien Sztabowicz: Yes. Yes. Hello, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. I’ve got one question on the mix because Dell’Oro I know this RAN market in the US declining in the mid-single-digit range in the coming year. So, the scale effect will play negatively there. But do you see any room for any capacity of grade cycle building up in some advanced markets and including the US? So how do you see your mix shifting in the coming years with the capacity upgrades and maybe some rollouts in emerging markets? And the second one is on the RAN market specifically. It is gradually slowing a little bit declining right now. Have you seen a change in the competitive landscape or the pricing conditions in the RAN market today or not so far? Thank you.

Börje Ekholm: If we start with the overall RAN market. And as we said at the Capital Markets Day, we expect a flattish, call it, mobile network market as well as RAN market over the next few years. That has not changed. And I would say Dell’Oro is now forecasting slight growth outside of China and a slight decline if you include China, then we see this inventory adjustment happening now that I think we have to expect to work its way through the system. When everyone normalizes inventories, we do the same thing. That’s why we also are able to reduce inventory. So you see that is in the supply chain. I think those will, as we see it now work its way through the next few quarters, one, two quarters or Q1, Q2. Then after that, what will drive the cycle in the US, but it applies also to other front-runner markets.

It’s two things in reality. One is the underlying traffic growth that we’re seeing already. That continues at very healthy levels. So, we expect to see a, call it, normalization of the RAN market also in front runner markets, and that’s why you reached the overall flattish market. The other part, which I think is very interesting is new applications. We’re starting to see some come through. First use case probably is fixed wireless access and fixed wireless access today may be used in mid-band. But over time, that’s probably going to migrate over to millimeter wave and provide also support for the market. So, when you look at this shifts that we are seeing, you will see these type of individual years have negative or positive numbers. But over time, we expect this more flattish market.