Restless innovation - what megatrends are made of

Strategic investment

Anticipating future megatrends while delivering on the six major ones currently shaping our everyday lives requires strategic investment, strategic partnerships, and collaboration with the commitment to nurturing creativity and invention at all levels of our business. The pace of digital transformation is phenomenal, with a projected CAGR of 13% for IoT¹. Across the Automotive, Industrial, and Consumer markets, connections will grow from 12.6 billion in 2020 to 26.9 billion in 2026². The u‑blox culture of restless innovation is out front and on pace.

In 2020 we rolled out our 10th generation of GNSS positioning engine capable of tracking four satellite constellations delivering precise location data for critical applications even in the most difficult and challenging environments.

We have further strengthened our IoT ecosystem security by implementing GSMA’s IoT SAFE recommendation within our Root of Trust security on chipsets, as global security risk for billions of connected devices rises exponentially.

“We never stop investing, being inspired, and bouncing ideas around the globe as we work together to meet new challenges and opportunities with the potential of IoT.”

CHF 113 million in 15 facilities, 800+ engineers on five continents

We invested CHF 113 million in 2020 across our 15 R&D facilities spread over five continents. Our global team of over 800 engineers at these facilities is vital to our both ability to respond to the ever-changing requirements of our three major markets and to identify what is relevant to the stakeholders around the world. Living and working in our markets enables us to work closely with our customers and partners to anticipate and engineer the high-performance, small-profile, low-power, and cost-effective embedded satellite positioning and wireless communication solutions and services that megatrends are made of.

Leveraging our IP investment for the long run

R&D drives our intellectual property value creation and is essential to our product differentiation, shaping them into integral enablers of their longterm roadmaps. Our significant investment in research and development every year, makes all of this possible and enables us to create more and more of our products on our own silicon, ensuring control of our critical components. More technological capabilities open new application possibilities, and innovation at our IP core will assure continued margin expansion. Our targeted investments in future technologies ensure growth and certainty.

Collaboration with leading companies and universities

We continue to partner with leading companies, universities, and research institutions worldwide on projects related to our product portfolio. We also value our ongoing collaboration with our regional distribution partners and our 9,000 global customers who inspire our innovation process with specific megatrend requirements.

Our culture of restless innovation

Our restless innovation culture nurtures and draws upon the collective expertise of our people and partners, ensuring we consider a broad range of ideas that could ultimately add real value for our customers and shareholders. We never stop investing, being inspired and bouncing ideas around the globe as we work together to meet new challenges and opportunities with the potential of IoT. 

¹ Ericsson Mobility Report November 2020
² Ericsson Mobility Report November 2020