Good evening, Pat. Thanks for all your advice. I have some questions. Do you recommend Ericcson as an investment? Why is it so involved in buying patents? How does it compare with Intel?
L. M. Ericsson Telephone Co. (ADR), $9.71, symbol ERIC on Nasdaq (ADRs outstanding: 3.2 billion; Market cap: $31.1 billion; www.ericsson.com), is a leading maker of systems and products for telecommunications networks. The company’s divisions include Networks (55% of revenue); Global Services (40%); and Multimedia (5%).
Ericsson recently closed a money-losing joint venture with Sony to design and market mobile phones. Sony paid Ericsson $1.5 billion for its share of the partnership.
However, Ericsson recently joined a consortium that included Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Research in Motion and EMC to buy over 6,000 patents that belonged to bankrupt Nortel Networks for $4.5 billion. These patents cover technology in a number of areas, including Internet, wireless networking, voice applications and computer chips.
Prior to the purchase, Ericsson already had its own strong portfolio of 27,000 patents.
Ericsson’s sales in North America, the company’s largest market, have slowed lately after more than a year of strong growth. However, sales in other areas, including fast-growing markets like…
Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
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Changes to this Policy
This Policy is the sole authorized statement of TSI Network's practices with respect to the collection of personal information through TSI Network's websites and the subsequent use and disclosure of such information. Any summaries of this Policy generated by third party software or otherwise (for example, in connection with the "Platform for Privacy Preferences" or "P3P") shall have no legal effect, are in no way binding upon TSI Network, shall not be relied upon in substitute for this Policy, and neither supersede nor modify this Policy.
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Legal Notices and Disclaimers
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