Ericsson

(Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in information and communications technology for telecommunications service providers and enterprises, including, among others, 3G, 4G, and 5G equipment, and Internet Protocol (IP) and optical transport systems. The company employs around 100,000 people and operates in more than 180 countries. Ericsson has over 57,000 granted patents. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one of the leaders in 5G. The company was founded in 1876 by Lars Magnus Ericsson and is jointly controlled by the Wallenberg family through its holding company Investor AB, and the universal bank Handelsbanken through its investment company Industrivärden. The Wallenbergs and the Handelsbanken sphere acquired their voting-strong A-shares, and thus the control of Ericsson, after the fall of the Kreuger empire in the early 1930s. Ericsson is the inventor of Bluetooth technology. Lars Magnus Ericsson began his association with telephones in his youth as an instrument maker. He worked for a firm that made telegraph equipment for the Swedish government agency Telegrafverket. In 1876, at the age of 30, he started a telegraph repair shop with help from his friend Carl Johan Andersson in central Stockholm and repaired foreign-made telephones. In 1878, Ericsson began making and selling his telephone equipment. His telephones were not technically innovative. In 1878, he agreed to supply telephones and switchboards to Sweden's first telecommunications operating company, Stockholms Allmänna Telefonaktiebolag. As production grew in the late 1890s, and the Swedish market seemed to be reaching saturation, Ericsson expanded into foreign markets through a number of agents. The UK (Ericsson Telephones Ltd.