Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson 5G and the RAN Webinar Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Frank Maa° - DNB Markets, Research Division - Analyst : So my question is relating, Fredrik, to the Ericsson Silicon, and also your ambitions for market share gains and ability to do that through this in a competitive context. And also based on the fact that your biggest competitors no longer have access to the most leading-edge silicon from REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 07, 2021 / 3:30PM, ERICb.ST - Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson 5G and the RAN Webinar (inaudible), TSMC and so on. And haven't really had that for over a year, as far as I have heard of these . So not everyone has access to the same production facilities. And you also mentioned that your customers are very smart with regards to recognizing the best technology and best technology road maps when they now make their choices for the 5G era. And can you speak to how attentive you feel that customers are really in your dialogues with them with regards to the importance of having access to the best leading-edge foundry technology? And if you're sensing any lack of this will really lead CSP to potentially make voluntary swaps for that matter in order to have high performance and energy-efficient mid-band performance for the next few years? Fredrik Jejdling - Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ) - Executive VP, Head of Business Area Network & Head of Segment Networks The AC component is -- defines largely the way we can build cost-effective, energy-efficient radios and basebands and the level of integration there facilities that. So, again, the way the customers choose us is typically on a TCO basis and the more -- the higher level of integration and move forward leaning, you are in that -- the better till you come out in those rankings. So I would say that as an output of focusing on differentiating our products for cost of performance, that has given us an advantage in techno-commercial evaluation with our customers. And I would think that together with, of course, overall good customer relationships, and that has given us the opportunity to take this market from 33% up to 39%. So it's a very important component of competitiveness. There are other factors in there as well, of course, but it's an important part. And again, this business has changed quite significantly when it comes to differentiation and the ability to differentiate. It's only 10 years back, you had a 2T2R radio, maybe 1 TDD/FDD, and the premise was to deliver upon cost reductions on that over time. Now it's far more around facilitating a cost per gigabit are production cost for a customer that is far more attractive, and that is driven largely by these type of investments. So I would say that concretely, that has allowed us to take a leading position. And I would also conversely say making wrong decisions in this area is also quite costly for the performance because then you have to work with programmable devices in the radios, which typically doesn't give the same performance, neither in coverage or cost. So I can't really comment on that. But I can say generally that if you have a lack of accessibility to leading-edge nodal density, then you have to work a lot more with software investment to try to compensate that. But when I say compared to competitors, on ground in the market today, we see a performance advantage on the mid-band radio driven by this. So I don't know if that answers your question, Frank?