Ericsson Gets $150 Million Credit from Nordic Bank

Swedish multinational Ericsson has signed an agreement with the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) for a $150 million loan, maturing in 2025. From the new amount, $98 million will replace credit with NIB that was set to mature in 2021. The credit will strengthen Ericsson’s balance sheet and financial flexibility, apart from supporting its investments in research and development (R&D) toward the development of 5G technology during 2020-22.

“Our increased investments to secure technology leadership in 5G, IoT and digital services have enabled us to reach nearly 80 commercial 5G agreements and contracts with unique operators, 24 of which are live networks – more than any other company,” Ericsson Chief Technology Officer Erik Ekudden said.

“In the coming years, we will see 5G networks going live around the world, with major deployments from 2020 and we expect the global number of 5G subscriptions to top 2.6 billion in 2025. The technologies that we are investing in are fundamentally changing the way we innovate, collaborate, live and do business,” he added.

Ericsson had invested Swedish Krona (SEK) 38 billion in R&D in 2018, which has enabled it to become a leading contributor in the development of open telecom standards with some 49,000 patents.