More about Ericsson: its Q1 commentary confirms this narrative, which RCR has been telling, about the Swedish firm’s strategy to defend and expand its position in the mobile market – by going deeper with 5G, with enterprises and developers. Its logic goes that it can solidify its tech position and diversify its customer position, at the same time, and therefore protect itself in the troubled carrier market, and protect its old compadres in there, too – who are burned by the 5G experience, and rather cautious about the 6G one. Ericsson, like the whole industry, has a job to make 5G work better – as a utility for enterprises and as a platform for developers. It is like a slo-mo industrial-venn juggling act, where each ball exists in its own gravity space, rising and falling according to different market economics. When will carriers buy-in? When will enterprises buy-in? When will developers buy-in?

These disciplines are inter-dependent, but the new 5G market logic says they will stack somehow when (and if) AI infrastructure moves to the metro edge and the enterprise edge. Give it to 2028 to see whether Ericsson’s pure-play 5G diversification strategy starts to come off; 2030 to see the real results. And don’t let new 6G kit sales confuse you; the proof must be in its enterprise 5G and API scores. Like it said on today’s earnings call, these are straighter long-term bets for a mobile kit vendor than DCI fiber builds between centralized AI clusters – which is where Nokia’s opposite diversification gamble has gone. Ericsson has no interest there, it says; it wants the access network, and a position as the undisputed (western) king of 5G/6G. On the call, Ericsson talked about geographical diversification as well – about depending less on the US, from here-out. 

Which means lots of things, of course – about war and tariffs, and how the political and business worlds respond to Donald Trump. (There is a commercial upside for every tech vendor if EMEA and APAC seek to connect sovereign infrastructure, of any sort.) But here’s Ericsson chief Börje Ekholm, speaking on the call: “We’re less exposed to North America from a geographic mix perspective – [with regards to] the investments and commitment we’ve been talking about to diversify. If we are a bit weaker in North America, but stronger in another market for a quarter, we can compensate, and keep a very healthy gross margin – [which means] better predictability for the whole company… While North America will always be important, it will be less important going forward. We work with frontrunner customers, but it’s always going to swing a bit up and down in a quarter.”

Which probably says everything about where Ericsson’s head is at – that it expects technologies, customers, and countries to rise and fall, and that it will insulate itself against industrial vagaries by capturing everything. Just so long as it is 5G and 6G.