Ericsson: quarterly losses after provisions and write-downs.

(CercleFinance.com) - Ericsson posted heavy quarterly losses on Tuesday after incurring a wide range of provisions related to customer contracts, asset write-downs and restructuring charges.


The Swedish telecoms gear maker reported this morning a first-quarter operating loss of 12.3 billion Swedish kroner (around 1.3 billion euros), compared with a profit of 3.5 billion kroner the previous year.

In the end, net loss reached 10.9 billion Swedish kroner, compared to a 2.1 billion Swedish kroner profit in the same period the year before.

At 46.4 billion Swedish kroner, reported sales decreased by 11% year-on-year, partly due to lower intellectual property rights licensing revenues.

As announced last month, the company has decided to write-down assets amounting to -3.3 billion Swedish kroner, most of which in IT, cloud, and media.

The company also took provisions and adjustments of 8.4 billion Swedish kroner triggered by negative developments late in the quarter, related to certain large customer projects.

However, CEO Börje Ekholm said the group's "more focused business strategy" is expected to result in a significantly improved profitability already in 2018.

After these results, Ericsson shares were down 1.6 percent at 56.2 Swedish kroner on Nasdaq Nordic in early trading.

Copyright (c) 2017 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.