By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
DailynewsegyptDailynewsegypt
  • Home
  • Business
    BusinessShow More
    Public Enterprise Minister discusses cooperation with Aluminium Bahrain
    Public Enterprise Minister discusses cooperation with Aluminium Bahrain
    May 28, 2023
    First Abu Dhabi Bank Egypt launches ‘Access’ portal for electronic payments
    First Abu Dhabi Bank Egypt launches ‘Access’ portal for electronic payments
    May 28, 2023
    Sorouh partners with RICON Construction to establish new projects with EGP 30bn investments
    Sorouh partners with RICON Construction to establish new projects with EGP 30bn investments
    May 28, 2023
    Egyptian property sales increase 7% in April: Aqarmap
    Egyptian property sales increase 7% in April: Aqarmap
    May 28, 2023
    Africa needs 10 million housing units annually to meet increasing demand:AFCCA
    Africa needs 10 million housing units annually to meet increasing demand:AFCCA
    May 28, 2023
  • Politics
    PoliticsShow More
    Irrigation Minister reviews preparations for upcoming Cairo Water Week
    Irrigation Minister reviews preparations for upcoming Cairo Water Week
    May 28, 2023
    Al-Sisi affirms Egypt's keenness on security, stability of Iraq
    Al-Sisi affirms Egypt’s keenness on security, stability of Iraq
    May 28, 2023
    Biden, Republican House Speaker reach ‘preliminary agreement’ on debt ceiling
    Biden, Republican House Speaker reach ‘preliminary agreement’ on debt ceiling
    May 28, 2023
    Erdoğan wins third presidential term in Turkey after tough run-off
    Erdoğan wins third presidential term in Turkey after tough run-off
    May 28, 2023
    Map of alliances affects second round of Turkish presidential election
    Map of alliances affects second round of Turkish presidential election
    May 28, 2023
  • Interviews
    InterviewsShow More
    I changed my artistic path to create ‘state of wonder’: Tarek Lotfi
    I changed my artistic path to create ‘state of wonder’: Tarek Lotfi
    May 25, 2023
    I adore Ramadan drama, ‘Telt Al-Talata’ series achieved great success: Ghada Abdel Razek
    I adore Ramadan drama, ‘Telt Al-Talata’ series achieved great success: Ghada Abdel Razek
    May 8, 2023
    We aim to establish Egypt as nearshore centre for Software AG for MET region: Rami Kichli
    We aim to establish Egypt as nearshore centre for Software AG for MET region: Rami Kichli
    April 29, 2023
    Egypt-Spain relations witness remarkable development in recent years: Spanish ambassador in Cairo
    Egypt-Spain relations witness remarkable development in recent years: Spanish ambassador in Cairo
    April 18, 2023
    "Al-Asly" series saw my first leading role in TV drama: Reham Abdel Ghafour
    “Al-Asly” series saw my first leading role in TV drama: Reham Abdel Ghafour
    April 16, 2023
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Lifestyle
Reading: Egypt is an advanced market when it comes to telecom: Ericsson CEO
Share
Notification
Latest News
Public Enterprise Minister discusses cooperation with Aluminium Bahrain
Public Enterprise Minister discusses cooperation with Aluminium Bahrain
Business
Irrigation Minister reviews preparations for upcoming Cairo Water Week
Irrigation Minister reviews preparations for upcoming Cairo Water Week
Politics Egypt
Al-Sisi affirms Egypt's keenness on security, stability of Iraq
Al-Sisi affirms Egypt’s keenness on security, stability of Iraq
Politics Egypt Region
Biden, Republican House Speaker reach ‘preliminary agreement’ on debt ceiling
Biden, Republican House Speaker reach ‘preliminary agreement’ on debt ceiling
Politics World
Erdoğan wins third presidential term in Turkey after tough run-off
Erdoğan wins third presidential term in Turkey after tough run-off
World Politics
Aa
Aa
DailynewsegyptDailynewsegypt
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Interviews
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Lifestyle
  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Interviews
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Lifestyle
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
  • Advertise
© 2023 DNE News. All Rights Reserved.
Dailynewsegypt > Blog > Business > Technology > Egypt is an advanced market when it comes to telecom: Ericsson CEO
InterviewsTechnology

Egypt is an advanced market when it comes to telecom: Ericsson CEO

Daily News Egypt
Last updated: 2014/02/19 at 1:01 PM
By Daily News Egypt 10 Min Read
Share
DNE Chairman Mostafa Sakr discusses Egypt’s telecom industry with HansVestberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ericsson Group (DNE Photo)
SHARE
  • DNE Chairman Mostafa Sakr discusses Egypt’s telecom industry with  HansVestberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ericsson Group (DNE Photo)
    DNE Chairman Mostafa Sakr discusses Egypt’s telecom industry with HansVestberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ericsson Group
    (DNE Photo)

    What is your message to the mobile operators in the region and what are your recommendations to them in order to meet the current challenges?

Two things: one, it is not strange that we are in this challenging equation; we are in an inflection point of this industry going from voice traffic to data traffic, we are in the fifth technology revolution that brings out new players and everyone wants to look for ways to be relevant in this new world. We at Ericsson are taking a lot of strategic decisions what we will do the next 5 to 10 years…Operators have a lot of choices; as an operator you can go into simply network operation, or you can go into a more advanced network where you can go into health care, education and connected cars.

There are so many opportunities, and we at Ericsson are investing so we can become relevant to all those choices that different customers will choose. If the operators decide to focus just on the network business, we are spending almost $5bn on network development; if the customer decides to focus on more advanced services, like mobile money and machine to machine, we are ready with our solutions and innovative services to support our partners in light of this great transformation witnessed by the ICT market. Definitely, we are in the middle in an inflection point of this technology revolution.

  • What are the factors that would push the development of mobile money in Egypt?

It all depends on the country’s regulators and its financial market. Technology–wise, it is not a problem at all to build a bank account based on mobile usage. You can say that we already have a bank account based on the pre-paid mobile subscriptions because you know the value of the number of minutes you have left all the time and currency is the same. Ericsson has 2.5 billion subscribers in the world on our charging and billing system.

So there are three factors here: the first is that the financial market has to allow mobile money; second is the technology, and Ericsson’s technology is there; and third is the consumer who is willing to adopt a new way where they use their own pre-paid account as a payment method because they trust it. The barrier is coming down and we have seen some markets around the world where the m-commerce has been sky rocketing as soon as they have seen this adoption coming, and it is not only about bank accounts. It is the fact that the barrier is much lower when we need to transfer money and there is no bank account; that is where the mobile can play a big role.

  • In light of Q4 financial results, is Egypt still within the target markets for the company?

Ericsson has been in Egypt more than 115 years. We are a company that has a long term strategy; we at Ericsson always speak to our customers and partners in Egypt about ways to overcome the challenges witnessed by the country. There are always times that are easier or tougher, but in Ericsson, we are a long term player. As I mentioned, we have been in Egypt for over 115 years. My plan or Ericsson’s strategy is to stay here in Egypt for at least another 100 years to continue to be part of the Egyptian society and continue to face challenging and easy times at the same time.

  • Cloud computing is regarded as a new business that witnessed a wide spread recently; what does Ericsson offer that is new to the cloud computing technology compared to the other providers?

That is one of the areas that we are heavily investing in. We started in this area in 2010 to virtualise our hardware and software. That was the beginning of our cloud offering. We have prepared all our technologies so they can be virtualised. We are already working with different operators in the world in this area but we need to keep the quality and the operators need to believe in new services to work with the cloud in a telecoms world. I believe we are well positioned and we are ahead of many competitors. We are not comparing ourselves to a cloud of Amazon because that is something different. At Ericsson we need to have a relevant network that knows exactly where the content is and how we transport it in order to get better network performance. It is not about filing information in the cloud, here we are talking about virtualising the network for better efficiency and better services, and that is what we are doing.

  • What is Ericsson’s market share and the latest deals made with operators?

We are acting in six different areas in our business and we are number one in four. I will start by the most difficult one and that is TV and Media; we are number one in the market globally, then OSS BSS (billing system). We are number one by revenue; in services such as consulting and system integration, we are number one and almost twice as much as number two. Then, of course, mobile infrastructure where we are also number one; by the end of 2012, we were twice the size of number two. That doesn’t mean that we will stay as number one forever, because everyone wants to beat number one. The competition is fierce and we do realise that; and we also realise that need to be humble to sustain our position and we need to stay very competitive by having the best technologies. We invest $5bn every year in research and development. We also have the best service engineers in the industry. That is our position and we fight everyday to keep it. I hope to see Ericsson continuing to be number one in this industry. We have a very good position in Egypt, we work with all operators. I am happy with our position in Egypt and we are willing to do more and invest more in Egypt.

  • We heard about Ericsson and Samsung patent agreement; can you tell us more about the details of this agreement?

We are in an industry where we don’t protect our patents. Anything Ericsson innovates we are actually obliged to share, that is why 6.7 billion mobile subscriptions in the world use the same technologies anywhere in the world. Ericsson has agreements with all the handset and infrastructure providers and Samsung were the only ones that we didn’t have an agreement with. After investigations we have come to an agreement. Today, after the agreement between Samsung, the biggest handset manufacturer by volume in the world, and Ericsson, the biggest network infrastructure producer in the industry, are now settled and in agreement and this shows that the model works. As a result, the industry will benefit and we will continue to benefit the consumers.

 

  • What is your evaluation of the telecom sector in Egypt from a global perspective and do you see the fourth licence coming to Egypt?

 

First of all, I can say that Egypt is an advanced market when it comes to telecom because mobile broadband is so used and people are using it daily. Therefore, of course Egypt is an advanced user market and of course 3G has come and 4G will probably be coming of course; for Ericsson this is a very important market, we have been here for many, many years. When it comes to the fourth licence, I think that the most important thing for Ericsson is to be relevant for all customers that we can have in any country in the world.

You Might Also Like

I changed my artistic path to create ‘state of wonder’: Tarek Lotfi

Medmark and Howden host cyber insurance seminar to help clients hedge against rising malware attacks

I adore Ramadan drama, ‘Telt Al-Talata’ series achieved great success: Ghada Abdel Razek

49% increase in phishing attacks in Egypt during 1Q 2023: Kaspersky

We aim to establish Egypt as nearshore centre for Software AG for MET region: Rami Kichli

TAGGED: Daily News Egypt, DNE, Ericsson, interview, Technology
Share this Article
Facebook Twitter Email Print
Previous Article Kerry hopes to meet with Al-Sisi soon
Next Article Central Bank of Egypt earmarks $1.44bn for low-cost housing
3 Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ad image
Ad image

Stay Connected

Facebook Like
Twitter Follow
Instagram Follow
Youtube Subscribe

Latest News

Public Enterprise Minister discusses cooperation with Aluminium Bahrain
Public Enterprise Minister discusses cooperation with Aluminium Bahrain
Business
Irrigation Minister reviews preparations for upcoming Cairo Water Week
Irrigation Minister reviews preparations for upcoming Cairo Water Week
Politics Egypt
Al-Sisi affirms Egypt's keenness on security, stability of Iraq
Al-Sisi affirms Egypt’s keenness on security, stability of Iraq
Politics Egypt Region
Biden, Republican House Speaker reach ‘preliminary agreement’ on debt ceiling
Biden, Republican House Speaker reach ‘preliminary agreement’ on debt ceiling
Politics World
//
Egypt’s only independent daily newspaper in English. Discuss the country’s latest with the paper’s reporters, editors, and other readers.

Quick Link

  • Home
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Interviews
  • Culture
  • Opinion
  • Sports
  • Lifestyle

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!

© 2023 DNE News. All Rights Reserved.

Join Us!

Subscribe to our newsletter and never miss our latest news, podcasts etc..

Zero spam, Unsubscribe at any time.

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?