• Mobile broadband booms in Sweden

Sweden’s Ericsson, the world’s largest maker of wireless networks, posted forecast-beating sales on the back of strong demand for mobile broadband equipment.

The Stockholm based firm said fourth-quarter net income rose to 4.3 billion kronor ($661 million) from 314 million kronor a year earlier. Analysts had estimated net income of 4.7 billion kronor, according to a survey of 25 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales grew 8 percent to 62.8 billion kronor, beating forecasts.

"Looking at operating income, it's a bit disappointing that we see Ericsson today with a strong pick-up in sales, but no pick-up in the operating margin," Morten Imsgard, analyst at Sydbank, told Reuters. "It might be challenging to keep up the good margins seen in the past couple of quarters."

Sales was boosted by growing demand for mobile broadband equipment to support booming use of smartphones like Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy.

"We expect the strong uptake for mobile broadband to continue in 2011, with number of mobile broadband subscriptions expected to double and hit one billion already this year", said Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg.

"This will be driven by more smartphone devices, including entry level smartphones as well as tablets. Mobile data traffic is forecasted to almost double annually over the coming years. We are well positioned to support our customers in meeting the changing consumer behavior".

For all of 2010, the company's net profit increased threefold to 11.15 billion kroner, compared to 3.67 billion a year earlier, when earnings were dragged down by heavy restructuring costs.

Sales in 2010 decreased 2.0 percent to 203.3 billion kronor compared to a year earlier, dragged down by a sluggish economic context and a component shortage problem. The company said sales growth returned in the second half of the year.

Ericsson has 90,000 employees and is the market leader in mobile network equipment ahead of Finnish-German giant Nokia Siemens, French-based telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent and China's Huawei.