Ericsson aims to make between 3,000 and 4,000 staff redundant this summer and thousands more may have to leave the company later, according to a report by Svenska Dagbladet.

The network giant would not comment directly on the report but pointed Mobile World Live towards the company’s 2014 cost and efficiency programme which aims to achieve net annual cost savings of SEK9 billion ($1.1 billion) by 2017.

“This program is on track but more remains to be done before the program is completed,” Ericsson said.

In its recent Q1 2016 financials, the company stated it had begun additional measures beyond the programme. “Hence, we are adapting our operations to current mobile broadband project volumes, which primarily impacts service delivery,” today’s statement added.

Further pressure has fallen on the company with a two per cent fall in first quarter sales.

It also announced a reorgnisation of its management structure during its first quarter results, in a bid to galvanise its performance.

So far, a high profile partnership with Cisco has not made a major contribution to revenue.

It should be borne in mind that Ericsson’s total number of employees has stayed consistent at about 115,000 for at least the last 12 months.

In March 2015, the company made 2,200 redundancies in Sweden, mainly in R&D and supply, as part of cost-cutting.

In contrast, just last month it was reported rival Nokia could cut between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs. Nokia, which employs 104,000 staff, has cited its merger with Alcatel-Lucent as putting pressure on job numbers, as well as challenging market conditions and technology shifts.