ERICSSON BUSINESS INNOVATION FORUM, TOKYO: Ericsson’s head of Asia-Pacific is confident the network vendor can turn around declining revenue in the region, citing huge future industry growth in what is already the world’s largest and most advanced mobile market.

The company is experiencing declining revenue across its Asian divisions, with this part of the world comprising 22 per cent of Ericsson’s total revenue. India, Japan and China are the trouble spots for Ericsson’s bottom line at present, but Mats Olsson (pictured), executive chairman and head of Asia Pacific, says better times are ahead. “I am confident that the decline will be reversed,” he told Mobile World Live.

“There’s so much potential with China and India yet to launch LTE,” he noted, adding that although he was “a little disappointed” with its LTE award from China Mobile (11 per cent of the total network deal) there is still much to come from the world’s largest mobile market. Olsson points to the fact that Ericsson is already a supplier of China Unicom’s 3G network, and China Telecom is yet to reveal its LTE network suppliers.

Olsson also noted that five of the top ten LTE markets are in Asia Pacific, “and this picture won’t be fundamentally different a few years from now… Asia Pacific is not only a leader today but will also be a leader tomorrow.” Backing up that claim is Ericsson’s forecast of 2.2 billion smartphone subscribers in the region by the end of 2018, 3.5 billion mobile broadband subscribers, and 4.5 billion mobile subscribers, figures which will represent 60 per cent of the global installed mobile base by that point.

“The growth in mobile broadband will likely bridge gaps in society between rich and poor, educated and non-educated, between rural and urban,” said Olsson. “It will be a very positive move.”