Ericsson Bets on Multimedia, Broadband Internet"

The Brazilian unit of Swedish telecoms equipment provider Ericsson expects multimedia services and broadband internet to account for 20-25% of its overall revenues in 2008 from 15-20% today, Ericsson director of technology and products Paulo Bernardocki told BNamericas.

Ericsson, which posted net revenues of 2.0bn reais (US$977mn) in 2006 from 2.4bn reais in 2005 in Brazil, faces a stagnant market for telecoms infrastructure.

Lower investment by operators in the slowing mobile phone segment and a lack of major projects for fixed line operators mean that suppliers of telecoms infrastructure equipment face a difficult market, newspaper Valor Econômico reported.

As a result, Ericsson is betting on multimedia and broadband, Valor reported Ericsson's new country manager Johan Wibergh as saying.

The unit is in talks with operators in Brazil, which could be interested in IPTV, the paper reported.

"The major search by companies is for IPTV, despite the regulatory restrictions," he said. Currently operators are restricted to providing video on demand rather than providing programs.

The newspaper quoted Wibergh as saying he was confident of the potential of the Brazilian market as Brazilians tend to be early adopters of new technology.

BROADBAND

Wibergh also said that operators and infrastructure suppliers expect broadband internet penetration to grow rapidly in 2007 accompanied by the fall in prices of services and products.

"Research shows that Brazil has around 7mn broadband subscribers, mainly ASL, and this could grow another 2mn to 9mn in 2008," Bernardocki said."

Posted to the site on 3rd April 2007