STOCKHOLM-In its fourth-quarter results, L.M. Ericsson posted a big pre-tax profit of $766 million, but its net income stood at $13.2 million.
But compared with its year ago-quarter, the infrastructure company pulled off a remarkable turnaround. In the fourth quarter of 2002, it ached with a $913 million loss.
For the full year, the company took a loss of $1.5 billion, an improvement on the previous year of $2.6 billion. This figure reflected a good quarter rather than a good year.
“The mobile infrastructure market has definitely stabilized, traffic continues to grow and operators are increasing their focus on network quality and capacity,” said Carl-Henric Svanberg, president and chief executive officer of Ericsson.
The vendor enjoyed a sequential quarterly sales boost of 29 percent to $5 billion as against $3.9 billion in the third quarter. But it fell compared with the year-ago period when it recorded $5.1 billion.
The company said its financial position improved with a net of financial assets and debt, amounting to a rise to$3.7 billion from $2.8 billion sequentially.
