When Nokia and Siemens joined forces in April this year, Ericsson had about 35 percent market share, NSN around 30 percent, and AlcaLu about 20 percent.
The CEO said he has been focused on extending Ericsson's market share in the past year, and now, based on numbers from external sources, commands around 45 percent to 47 percent of the market, while NSN has around 27 percent and AlcaLu around 13 percent.
"We have pushed on market share because it is so strategic. Now it's time to leverage our position, so next year there's going to be less focus on gaining market share," said Svanberg.
Healso sees the current slowdown in network upgrade business as a temporary blip -¨C "operators are healthy, networks are loaded, traffic is increasing" -¨C and that the current high volumes of new network builds will result in good future business. "They build greater footprint for future network expansions and upgrades," noted Svanberg.
Not just bad for Ericsson
Nomura International analyst Richard Windsor believes that although this is "a bad profit warning... the fundamentals of the mobile industry remain intact as new subscribers keep on joining the network and we are seeing the first signs of a lift-off in data usage."
In a research note issued this morning he added: "Sooner or later operators will have to resume spending on both capacity upgrades and software."
Windsor, therefore, expects Ericsson to recover, but "how long it takes to regain its former glory remains to be seen."
Healso notes that the market conditions hitting Ericsson are bad news for AlcaLu, NSN, and Nortel Networks Ltd. (NYSE/Toronto: NT - message board). "This is clearly a market issue and not limited to Ericsson," concludes the analyst.
That was reflected in share price movements during the European business morning. Alcatel-Lucent saw its share price drop by €0.40, nearly 6 percent, to €6.50, while Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK - message board), a 50 percent stakeholder in NSN, saw its share price fall by nearly 3 percent to €24.87.