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Swedish Telecom shares Ericsson The company’s shares surged as third-quarter core profit beat analysts’ expectations and demand grew in North America.
Ericsson announced on Tuesday that its adjusted third-quarter profit (excluding impairment provisions) was 7.327 billion Swedish krona (about 700 million U.S. dollars), compared with 3.9 billion Swedish krona in the same period last year, exceeding the average forecast of 5.75 billion Swedish kronor by analysts quoted by Reuters .
Reuters estimated that third-quarter net sales fell 4% year-on-year to 61.8 billion Swedish krona, but still exceeded analysts’ expectations of nearly 61.6 billion kronor. North America has become a bright spot in the sales chart, growing by more than 50% compared with the same period last year.
“We see the overall market stabilizing, with North America returning to growth as an early adopter market,” Ericsson Chief Executive Börje Ekholm said in a statement. He stressed that he still expected “good growth” in the region and in the fourth quarter. Quarterly sales were “stable year-on-year.”
The company’s shares edged up nearly 9% as of 8:28 a.m. London time before edging back to 7% at 8:44 a.m.
The results come after Ericsson has been battling slowing demand for 5G equipment, prompting it to announce plans to cut 1,200 jobs in Sweden back in march. In order to reduce costs, the company previously cut 8,500 positions globally, equivalent to about 8% of its total workforce.
This breaking news story is being updated.
