Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (ERIC)

Ericsson supplies mobile connectivity equipment, software and services to communications service providers, enterprises and the public sector. The portfolio spans three reported segments, Networks, Cloud Software and Services, and Enterprise, which holds the Global Communications Platform, Wireless Wide Area Networks and private 5G networks, with a segment Other covering media businesses and other non-allocated businesses. The filing states that around 50% of the world's mobile 5G traffic excluding China is carried over Ericsson's radio networks. Figures are stated in Swedish kronor.

Where it came from

The origins date to 1876, when Lars Magnus Ericsson opened a small workshop in Stockholm to repair telegraph instruments and other electrical and mechanical equipment, the same year Alexander Graham Bell filed his US patent application for the telephone. The company began manufacturing its own telephones shortly afterwards. It is still registered in Stockholm.

Research and patents

Research and development expenses were SEK 48.9 billion in 2025, against SEK 53.5 billion in 2024 and SEK 50.7 billion in 2023. The patent portfolio runs to more than 60,000 granted patents, licensed globally on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms to users of the technology, and the company describes its policy as protecting and capitalising on its research spending through that portfolio. Current areas of focus include network APIs within Enterprise, handling gigabytes per second more efficiently, more automation, using artificial intelligence to improve network performance, and reducing energy consumption.

Making it

There were seven major manufacturing and assembly sites at the end of 2025 with 58.20 thousand square metres of floor space between them, one each in Sweden, China, Estonia, Brazil, the United States, Romania and Mexico. By site the floor space was 10.4 thousand square metres in China, 10.3 in the United States, 9.0 in Estonia, 9.0 in Romania, 8.3 in Brazil, 7.5 in Mexico and 3.7 in Sweden. All the facilities are leased other than Nanjing in China, and most of the floor space is used for assembly and test.

The supply chain

The value chain is described in five stages: global electronics manufacturing, direct suppliers, own operations, direct customers, and consumers and end users. In 2025 there were approximately 15,000 active direct suppliers, of which approximately 200 provided materials and components used in the hardware. Regional supply hubs consolidate material from component suppliers and distribute it to the production sites, and those supply and component hubs sit in Sweden, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, the United States, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, India, Malaysia, Singapore and China.

People

There were 88,826 employees at the end of 2025, against 94,326 a year earlier and 99,952 in 2023. By market area, 39,045 were in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, of which 12,806 in Sweden, 25,189 in South East Asia, Oceania and India, 15,050 in the Americas and 9,542 in North East Asia.

Holdings and Iran

The directly owned subsidiaries include Ericsson AB, Ericsson Shared Services AB, Red Bee Media Holding AB and Ericsson Insurance, alongside two Swedish data centre companies. The company acquired Vonage Holdings Corp and carries obligations under a National Security Agreement entered into in connection with that acquisition. Ericsson began winding down in Iran in 2018, had no business engagements there in 2025, and estimates its gross revenue and net profits attributable to Iran as negligible, while some older bank guarantees and performance bonds involving Iranian banks remain in place.

From Ericsson's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025. That filing answers most of Item 4 and Item 5 by incorporating headings of the 2025 Swedish Annual Report by reference, so this description is written from what the Form 20-F itself carries, read as one whole document. The filing