Ericsson’s Biggest Customers and Partners (Operators) Are Holding it Back
2025 Ericsson Industry Analyst Event, Boston, Sept. 11, 2025 — A select group of industry analysts gathered at Convene in Boston to hear from Ericsson leaders, partners and customers about the company’s Enterprise business unit’s strategies, capabilities and opportunities in domains such as private cellular networks (PCNs) and network APIs, with AI and 5G monetization serving as themes that ran across the various executive presentations.
TBR perspective
Ericsson struck a cautiously optimistic tone at its annual industry analyst event, which focused on the Enterprise segment. The company acknowledged struggles and highlighted learnings and adaptations, especially pertaining to Vonage and the new Aduna joint venture for network APIs, which will set the stage for better outcomes moving forward. Ericsson is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the still-nascent PCN opportunity that is developing globally, but the vendor’s go-to-market encumbrances continue to constrain its growth prospects.
Specifically, the range and nature of Ericsson’s partnerships with the broader PCN ecosystem remain relatively limited compared to other players in the domain, especially frontrunner Nokia. Ericsson’s go-to-market channel beyond CSPs for enterprise growth areas remains limited relative to competitors such as Nokia, particularly in PCN. Nokia decided several years ago to reduce its reliance on CSPs and made a concerted effort to sell its PCN solutions directly to enterprises and through a robust roster of channel partners, including global systems integrators (GSIs), niche systems integrators (SIs), VARs and communication service providers (CSPs).
Ericsson has little control over one of its biggest challenges: CSPs are difficult to deal with, hesitant to work together for competitive reasons, and move slowly. Compounding this, CSPs are Ericsson’s largest customer cohort and partner channel, and TBR estimates more than 97% of Ericsson’s total company revenue through direct and indirect means stemmed from CSPs in 2024. These are key reasons why TBR expects Ericsson’s enterprise revenue will lag its potential in areas such as PCN, network APIs and communication applications.
Impact and Opportunities
FWA has significantly more room to run
Ericsson estimates that approximately 25% of all mobile broadband traffic globally is fixed wireless access (FWA) now and that 18% of premises globally will utilize FWA within five years, representing unprecedented growth considering FWA only began to take off in 2020. These statistics align with what TBR has been saying for several years: The market opportunity for FWA is much larger and more vibrant than the industry originally thought.
For example, TBR estimates FWA is technologically and economically feasible to support up to 50% of residential premises in the U.S. This opportunity is helped by the rapid time to deployment and strong value proposition the technology provides end users, especially when compared to other broadband access mediums like fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), which is laborious and expensive to build out and has higher service costs for the end user. Business premises can also be strong candidates for adopting FWA. Ericsson is arguably the largest beneficiary of the FWA movement on a global basis in terms of revenue generated by selling FWA enablement products and services to CSPs (infrastructure only, not including customer premises equipment [CPE]).
Awareness gap in market slows adoption
On several occasions at the event, Ericsson leaders mentioned that there is an “awareness gap” in terms of the efficacy and outcomes that 5G-enabled technologies are achieving, especially as it pertains to PCN for businesses and the public sector. For example, Newmont, a Tier 1 mining company that adopted a private 5G network from Ericsson to remotely control its dump trucks at the mine, has realized a tenfold increase in coverage and a significant corresponding boost in productivity.
Such outcomes are compelling to enterprises looking to transform their operations to drive more revenue growth and or reduce costs. Though word is gradually getting out that early adopter enterprises are achieving strong results from new technology solutions, more needs to be done. Greater emphasis on partnerships with companies that have the ears of senior management at enterprises, most notably global systems integrators (GSIs), are a key way for Ericsson to promote the benefits of these solutions.
Differentiation, both in technology and marketing, needs to be addressed
Ericsson needs to do more to differentiate its technology solutions, and this includes ensuring that differentiation is well messaged to the market. Though some consolidation has occurred in the PCN, network API and communications applications domains, there remains significant competition and fragmentation, with many vendors playing in the market that are not well differentiated. This lack of differentiation is likely another reason Ericsson is struggling to achieve outsized growth in these nascent market areas. TBR did not hear a compelling narrative as to how Ericsson is differentiating itself in terms of technology and partnerships in these key, high-growth market areas. It remains to be seen if Ericsson’s NetCloud AI-powered cloud management and orchestration solution for PCN becomes a key differentiator once it is scaled up to large deployments of the Ericsson Private 5G solution.
Private cellular networks channel remains underdeveloped
Ericsson’s PCN revenue is growing at a relatively strong double-digit rate, but the size of the business is less than 60% the size of frontrunner (outside of China) Nokia’s PCN revenue, according to TBR’s Private Cellular Networks Vendor Benchmark. This differential in revenues is primarily due to Ericsson’s underdeveloped go-to-market approach and channel relative to Nokia. This is an issue TBR has identified and written about for the past few years, but Ericsson seems to have made minimal progress.
Ericsson is partnering extensively on PCN, but according to TBR’s research, most of that activity is driven by CSPs — even though enterprises and the public sector primarily work with GSIs, niche SIs, VARs and government contractors on digital transformation-related initiatives. Ericsson is also partnering with non-CSPs, including a new agreement with NTT DATA that reflects the kind of deeper, broader partnerships TBR believes Ericsson should pursue. Surface-level partnerships are essentially reseller arrangements, whereas some vendors have robust engagements with key GSIs and other types of partners. Nokia’s relationship with EY and Kyndryl are two such examples.
Connected laptops is a niche market, not a mass market opportunity
Ericsson has jumped on the bandwagon of 5G-connected PCs, and representatives from T-Mobile and HP Inc. spoke at the event about why this is a unique market opportunity. Though 5G-connected PCs sounds like a great feature that end users will utilize, TBR believes the additional cost required to embed the 5G modem into the PC, plus the subscription fees that would need to be paid to the service provider, broadly limits the scope of who would actually find enough value in the product and corresponding service to actually pay for it, especially when most people have smartphones and those smartphones have mobile hotspot tethering, which essentially makes the computer a cellular-connected device at no additional cost.
To be sure, 5G-connected PCs offer a unique capability that the mass market would value, but once extra cost is involved, only a small fraction of that market is likely to pay for the experience. Some enterprises and select types of SMBs (e.g., construction firms) and small office/home office (SOHO) workers (e.g., real estate agents and other road warrior workers) would be unique candidates for 5G-connected PCs, but this would be more of a niche market than a mass market opportunity. As such, TBR suggests network and PC vendors reassess their addressable market projections to be more aligned with observed user behavior and price-for-value considerations.
Conclusion
Ericsson has competitive technology, but its overreliance on CSPs to purchase that technology and/or scale it into end markets remains a weakness that will continue to hamper the company’s ability to participate more significantly in key growth domains, such as PCN. On the network API and communications application side, progress is being made and some scale is occurring, but Ericsson and its CSP partners are up against relatively fast-moving, well-resourced and more specialized entities, most notably hyperscalers and other digital-native players. Addressing the telecom industry’s weaknesses and shortcomings in these market areas will require more investment in channel development and more robust strategic partnerships with entities such as government contractors, GSIs and niche, domain-specific SIs.
Ericsson’s dependence on slow-moving CSPs is a risky proposition, especially when it comes to driving growth in key areas, including PCN, network APIs and communication applications. Ericsson should take a page out of Nokia’s playbook for aligning its opportunity areas with non-CSP players to accelerate growth. Specifically, Ericsson should take a closer look at how Nokia structured its PCN business, especially its channel ecosystem, to reduce its reliance on CSPs. This has proved to be the most optimal way to participate in opportunities arising in the enterprise end markets Ericsson is targeting.
