ERICSSON ANNOUNCES RESTRUCTURING PLANS
Copyright 2001 www.tombraiderchronicles.com

[ May 23rd 2001 ]

Ericsson, the Stockholm based mobile phone giant, is pinning the success of Paramount Pictures upcoming Tomb Raider motion picture combined with a multi-billion dollar restructuring program to bring the company back to profitability, Internet World reports today.

As major contributors to a strategy and technology summit in New York this week, the Swedish wireless company presented analysts and the press with a restoration plan which sees a downsizing of it's 12,000 work force and a development plan to outsource the manufacture of it's handheld devices in a attempt to recoup $487.2 million from lost first quarter / last year revenues.

We're experiencing a lot of uncertainty in the market and the economy," said Ericsson president and CEO Kurt Hellstrom. "We have taken a lot of measures to cope with the situation. Our management team is committed to implementing this program. We're working on cash flow. It's not good to go to the bank when you're weak. You want to go to the bank when you're strong."

Ericsson's core revenue comes from the sales of infrastructure equipment such as cellular base stations which the company claims captures 20 percent of the market, more than twice the volume of it's nearest competitors. The company will also press ahead with its G3 and G4 high speed wireless networks, although the success of this depends very much on market economy with the cost of G3 licenses soaring as network carriers enter a bargaining war.

Ericsson's presentation also featured a game machine running Tomb Raider, the movie version of which will be coming out his summer. The company is running commercials as movie tie-ins and hopes to connect with the young consumers by featuring technology "powered by Ericsson" in the promos. The movie promises to be a summer blockbuster, and Ericsson has signed up 30,000 points of sale for marketing its products and services, according to Jan Wareby, executive vice president of the consumer products division.