Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson has won a new multibillion-dollar contract to sell 5G equipment from India’s Bharti Airtel, two sources familiar with the matter said.

This comes after Ericsson won part of a $3.6 billion (roughly Rs. 30,259 crore) deal to sell 5G equipment to India’s Vodafone Idea last month. He shared the contract with Nokia and Samsung.

The new contracts are expected to boost Ericsson’s revenue next year after a big drop in contracts from India in the first half of the year.

Sales in Southeast Asia, Oceania and India were down 44 percent in the second quarter. Ericsson will announce its third quarter results on Tuesday.

Most of the deployments are likely to happen next year, according to one source familiar with the matter.

Ericsson declined to comment. Airtel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ericsson shares rose as much as 1.8 percent after the Reuters story.

Demand from India’s 5G market began to skyrocket in 2023, when sales in the region grew as much as fivefold, as Airtel and Jio, the telecom unit of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, began expanding 5G services.

That demand has offset a slowdown in revenue from Ericsson’s main US market, where telecom operators have been cutting spending.

Global telecom equipment revenue fell 16 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter, marking the fourth straight quarter of double-digit contractions, according to research firm Dell’Oro.

© Thomson Reuters 2024

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