'India tops Ericsson agenda; country to be future 5G hub'

India has been a top priority market for Swedish telecom gear manufacturer Ericsson with telecom service providers spearheading the fastest deployment of 5G networks, said Nunzio Mirtillo, senior vice president and head of South East Asia, Oceania and India, in an interview.

- Gulveen Aulakh

With India likely to be among the top five markets, alongside the US and Europe, Ericsson is scaling up its manufacturing locally, and expanding its workforce to export its gears in significant numbers, beginning this year. Edited excerpts:

With India swiftly rolling out 5G networks, what has been the impact on your operations in India and where is India placed in terms of your global operations?

India remains a very strategic country for Ericsson and, now, it’s obvious. Six or seven years ago, it was less obvious, but we always put India on top of our agenda. The 5G rollout is the fastest ever. We already have around 250,000 5G sites, which is massive, and a huge part of the population is already experiencing or can use 5G. We have gained a substantial market share in 2022, thanks to partnership agreements with Bharti and Jio. We have reorganized our market area to serve this huge rollout. My market, which is Southeast Asia, India and Oceania, grew 132%, mainly because of India. As a country, India is already in the top five in terms of sales for Ericsson, but in Q1 (2023) it was No 2 and contributed 11% of the company’s global sales. No 1 is the US with 37%. So, India was very important before, and it is even more important now.

Do you expect India’s share to rise beyond 11% since 5G installation is expected to rise from hereon?

Everything depends on what is going to happen in other countries. However, for sure, India will stay very relevant.