Asian Tech Press (Oct 20) -- Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson said Tuesday that it plans to resize its operations in China due to a reduced market share in the country.

It plans to restructure its business in China starting in the fourth quarter of this year, President and CEO Börje Ekholm said Tuesday during an earnings call.

"As a consequence of the reduced market share in Mainland China we are planning to resize our sales and delivery organization in the country, starting in Q4, adding to our restructuring charges," Ekholm said, "In the short term we just simply need to adjust the cost structure, to right-size that as much as we possibly can."

Earlier, Ericsson reported third quarter results, with revenue from China down 74% year-on-year to SEK 1.3 billion ($150.9 million). In the previous second quarter, the company's revenue in China fell 63% to SEK 1.5 billion ($174.1 million).

In 2020, the Chinese market was Ericsson's second-largest revenue source, while it slipped to the fourth-largest in the second quarter of this year. "It is quite clear that our market share in mainland China has been reduced," said Ekholm.

Ericsson's CEO also said, "But of course, it's quite clear, the loss of sales in China hurts our sales volume in total. And we have, we need to invest even more to regain that loss of volume by growing in other markets."

(US$1 = 8.616 Swedish kronor)