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To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (42154)	9/22/1999 11:35:00 AM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

Ericy Comments> (nbfm) Ericsson's Siberg on Schedule, Margins, by: nbfm (45/M/san diego) 38995 of 39011 Ericsson's Siberg on Schedule, Margins, China: Company Comment Hong Kong, Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The following is a comment from Johan Siberg, president of Ericsson Mobile Communications AB. On Ericsson's new product schedule for mobile phones, which Siberg says is ahead of schedule: ''In a changing and competitive world we've had some quite early announcements. ''We've gone through a little bit of difficult period here with a gap between our previous products coming out and the state- of-the-art new product line,'' Siberg said. ''But now I think we have caught up. We have lived up to that commitment we made earlier in the year. On the Telecom '99 Conference: ''The Telecom '99 is not specifically what I would say is a consumer conference, it's really an operators meeting, a technology meeting. It's not very easy to use to present the consumer products. ''What we will be showing, I think at the Telecom is application-oriented. We will see a lot of demonstrations centered around features and functions of WAP functionality. We will see applications for GPRS. We will see things around third generation efforts." On the company's steps to increase profit margins for mobile phones to double digits from their current one percent level: ''First is obviously to have a competitive range of products that can stand up and have a reasonable price level. We are working very hard now to come out now with a better product line which has a reasonable margin potential. ''We're carrying a pretty heavy development load that eats out of our margins. On Ericsson's 2000 target for increasing margin levels: ''I can't give you a detailed forecast on that, but I think it's quite clear that our business objective is obviously to improve what has been a very healthy margin business.'' On mobile phone prices: ''The phone business has seen a prices erosion of something between 15 and 20 percent per year. ''The other change is that more of the mobile phones sold today are at the entry level. This is specifically relevant in Europe where we have seen emergence of new services, pre-paid services, pay as you go. ''The combination of a price reduction on a given phone line together with the shift to more low-end phones means that the overall price level has dropped maybe 20, 25 percent. On mobile phone use levels worldwide: ''The overall market is actually increasing, more than the industry foresaw a year ago. We are talking about 250 million or more (phone users this year), whereas a year ago we were talking maybe 200 million. ''We see continued strong growth because penetration rates continue to go up, we see Asia come back, we see markets like Latin America growing, we see Japan continues to grow quite strongly. I think we will see forecasts for cellular phone penetration increased from earlier estimates.'' On China's proposed third mobile operator: ''The policy decision has been made to establish a third operator in the CDMA environment. We have an infrastructure business in CDMA and we are developing a CDMA handset in America today, so I don't see any reason why we would not be able to supply to such a third network.'' Sep/22/1999 3:03 For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here. (C) Copyright 1999 Bloomberg L.P. Any redistribution of Bloomberg content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Bloomberg L.P. Any reference to the material must be properly attributed to Bloomberg News. The information herein was obtained from sources which Bloomberg L.P. and its suppliers believe reliable, but they do not guarantee its accuracy. Neither the information, nor any opinion expressed, constitutes a solicitation of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities.(C) Copyright 1999 Bloomberg L.P. BLOOMBERG, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Financial Markets, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg News Radio are trademarks, tradenames and