Ericsson Gains Wireless Market Share, Lucent Says. Seen news below. Mika I thing the fact that Ericsson will pull out the BTS Lucent ainstalled in Saudi Arabia and will replace them by ERICY's has hit home.
Ericsson Gains Wireless Market Share, Lucent Says
Murray Hill, New Jersey, July 20 (Bloomberg) -- Ericsson AB, Europe's biggest phone-equipment maker, is strengthening its lead in the market for gear to run cellular-phone networks, Lucent Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Rich McGinn said.
``Ericsson is far and away growing, as the largest, at the highest rate,'' McGinn said on a conference call after Lucent, the world's top phone-equipment maker, posted a third-quarter loss and warned profit in the next six months will lag forecasts.
Ericsson is benefiting as wireless companies expand their networks to handle more users and modify them to transmit data faster. The Swedish company gets almost half its sales from mobile networks, while Lucent generates most of its revenue from gear for traditional-phone and data networks.
Stockholm-based Ericsson is taking market share because it's selling more equipment based on the Global System for Mobile Communication standard, McGinn said. GSM is the most widely used wireless standard and is popular in Europe and parts of Asia.
The market for phone equipment is set to more than double to $729 billion in 2004 from $346 billion last year, according to Motorola Inc. By then, Ericsson expects more than 600 million people to connect to the Web through cell phones, getting stock prices, reading news and booking concert tickets on the go.
Horse Race
McGinn said he expects Lucent's sales of wireless gear to rise 21 percent to 25 percent next year, or about as fast as the market is growing in terms of total revenue. He said Lucent is No. 2 in the market after Ericsson amid competition from Nokia Oyj, the biggest maker of cell phones, and Nortel Networks Corp.
``It's a multihorse race for the No. 2 slot, with Ericsson growing much faster than anyone else out there,'' McGinn said.
Ericsson's U.S. shares rose 1 5/16, or 6 percent, to 22 9/16. In Stockholm, the stock closed up 9.5 kronor, or 4.9 percent, at 205. Murray Hill, New Jersey-based Lucent fell 10 5/16, or 16 percent, to 54 3/8 on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Swedish company will report second-quarter earnings tomorrow at 8 a.m. local time. It's likely to say profit from operations more than doubled to 5.045 billion kronor ($557 million), according to the average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Jul/20/2000 16:22 ET
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