Ericsson, the world’s biggest mobile telecom equipment maker, missed first-quarter sales and profit forecasts as its work to roll out faster fourth- generation networks failed to offset the ending of older projects.

The Swedish company said yesterday it expected sales to pick up as it benefited from recent contract wins, such as a five-year deal it signed with Vodafone in February. Its shares however fell almost 5 per cent, with some analysts noting the intense price competition in the mobile telecom equipment market where Ericsson competes with Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE, as well as European rivals Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia.

“I am generally a bit pessimistic towards Ericsson,” said Inge Heydorn, a fund manager at Sentat Asset Management who does not own Ericsson shares. “I don’t think sales will come back. I think it’s a tough market.”

Ericsson said it made earnings before interest and tax of 2.6 billion Swedish crowns (€286 million) in the first quarter, up from 2.1 billion in the same period last year, but well short of analysts’ mean forecast of 3.5 billion.

Revenue fell by 7 per cent adjusted for currency swings, with growth in China, the Middle East and Latin America failing to offset previously flagged declines in North America and Japan due to the ending of projects with major clients.

Ericsson has long been expected to benefit from big investments by telecoms firms in high-speed fourth-generation (4G) networks to cope with a surge in mobile data traffic as consumers increasingly look to access videos on the move. The company has supplied a majority of so-called Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks already in use and has the strongest portfolio of patents for the technology in the industry.

It says it expects sales from such projects to pick up in the second half of the year. – (Reuters)