• Ericsson profit drops on weak sales

Last week Swedish telecom giant Ericsson shocked the market when it reported a profit drop of 77 percent.

Now Reuters says that when Huawei Technologies posts its annual results in April, they will likely show the unlisted Chinese firm has overtaken Sweden's Ericsson as the world's top-selling telecoms equipment maker.

"There's a lot of price pressure now (from the Chinese firms) and this is going be tough for Ericsson," Bill Rojas, an analyst at research firm IDC, told the newswire.

Huawei's annual sales of network equipment are forecast at around 21 billion dollar. It's about 1 billion more than Ericsson.

The CEO of Stockholm-based Ericsson said his company is always trying to cut costs, but doesn't anticipate major layoffs - at least not yet.

Ericsson's latest earnings figures stunned analysts, as it posted a sharp drop in net profit. Lower margins in upgrading European mobile networks, and cost cutting among mobile operators were to blame for the drop.