Ericsson has today entered into an asset purchase agreement to acquire the parts of the Carrier Networks division of Nortel relating to CDMA and LTE technology in North America. The purchase is structured as an asset sale at a cash purchase price of USD 1.13 b. on a cash and debt free basis. This announcement follows the completion of the auction process initiated by Nortel, and the transaction is subject to court and customary regulatory approvals.

In a recently published report by Dell’Oro Group, a trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, the worldwide mobile infrastructure market revenue contracted 9 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2009 despite a record number of 3G base station shipments. The GSM market experienced its largest year-over-year decline as Chinese mobile operators focused on 3G network deployments.