'Ericsson scaling up facility to meet 5G equipment demand'

Sweden's Ericsson is scaling up its manufacturing facility in Pune to meet 5G equipment demand coming from its Indian telecom operator partners, a top executive said.

The telecom gear maker works with Jabil in Pune to manufacture 4G and 5G equipment for domestic and export-related requirements.

"We are scaling up production capability in Pune with Jabil. We would like to hit the target of meeting close to 100% requirement in India from India," Nitin Bansal, head of Ericsson India and head of Network Solutions, Southeast Asia, Oceania and India, told ET. "We have done that for 4G and we will ensure that we hit the milestone for 5G as well."

Ericsson bagged 5G network deals from both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel and is already helping them deploy their networks. Both telcos will launch their respective 5G services ahead of the Diwali festival.

On Vodafone Idea's 5G strategy and payment issues, Bansal said that 5G rollout timelines are a work in progress and that the company continues to work with all telcos.

ET recently reported that Vi has been facing challenges in finalising contracts for 5G network gear supplies and tower tenancies, with vendors pushing the cash-strapped operator to clear their 4G-related dues and fork out advance payments for fresh contracts. Ericsson also released its India-specific 5G study, which revealed that 5G network superiority will drive consumer loyalty in the country and could be a trigger for churn. It said that Indian customers may leave their existing network to use a better network in terms of coverage and performance.

The vendor said that network deployment speed will be crucial in India and there will be customer movement from one network to another to use the best 5G network.