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.

Their first dial telephone was produced in 1921, although sales of the early automatic switching systems were slow until the equipment had proven itself on the world's markets.

[5] World War I, the subsequent Great Depression and the loss of its Russian assets after the Revolution slowed the company's development while sales to other countries fell by about half.

The banks gradually increased their possession of LM Ericsson "A" shares, while International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) was still the largest shareholder.

In the 1990s, during the emergence of the Internet, Ericsson was regarded as slow to realize its potential and falling behind in the area of IP technology.

[13] But the company had established an Internet project in 1995 called Infocom Systems to exploit opportunities leading from fixed-line telecom and IT.

CEO Lars Ramqvist wrote in the 1996 annual report that in all three of its business areas – Mobile Telephones and Terminals, Mobile Systems, and Infocom Systems – "we will expand our operations as they relate to customer service and Internet Protocol (IP) access (Internet and intranet access)".

[citation needed] The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) had prepared the specifications for a 3G mobile service that included several technologies.

Ericsson pushed hard for the WCDMA (wideband CDMA) form based on the GSM standard and began testing it in 1996.

Japanese operator NTT Docomo signed deals to partner with Ericsson and Nokia, who came together in 1997 to support WCDMA over rival standards.

This resulted in a patent infringement lawsuit that was resolved in March 1999[15] when the two companies agreed to pay each other royalties for the use of their respective technologies and Ericsson purchased Qualcomm's wireless infrastructure business and some R&D resources.

[23] The emergence of full mobile Internet began a period of growth for the global telecom industry, including Ericsson.

New advances included IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) and the next evolution of WCDMA, called High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA).

[32] In December 1999, Microsoft and Ericsson announced a strategic partnership to combine the former's web browser and server software with the latter's mobile-internet technologies.

Ericsson, the world's largest producer of mobile telecommunications equipment, shed thousands of jobs, as did the country's Internet consulting firms and dot-com start-ups.

The major equipment manufacturers – Motorola (U.S.), Lucent Technologies (U.S.), Cisco Systems (U.S.), Marconi (UK), Siemens (Germany), Nokia (Finland), as well as Ericsson – all announced job cuts in their home countries and subsidiaries around the world.

[43] The sector's problems caused bankruptcies and job losses, and led to changes in the leadership of several major companies.

[44] In June 2002, Infineon Technologies (then the sixth-largest semiconductor supplier and a subsidiary of Siemens) bought Ericsson's microelectronics unit for $400 million.

[49] In 2007, Ericsson acquired carrier edge-router maker Redback Networks, and then Entrisphere, a US-based company providing fiber-access technology.

[50] In September 2007, Ericsson acquired an 84% interest in German customer-care and billing software firm LHS, a stake later raised to 100%.

[66] In September 2013, Ericsson completed its acquisition of Microsoft's Mediaroom business and televisions services, originally announced in April the same year.

[70] Approximately 2,300 Ericpol employees joined Ericsson, bringing software development competence in radio, cloud, and IP.

[16] In December 2024, Ericsson secured a multi-year extension deal worth billions with Bharti Airtel for the provision of 4G and 5G radio access network products and solutions.

[78] As of 2016[update], members of the board of directors of LM Ericsson were: Leif Johansson, Jacob Wallenberg, Kristin S. Rinne, Helena Stjernholm, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Börje Ekholm, Ulf J. Johansson, Mikael Lännqvist, Zlatko Hadzic, Kjell-Åke Soting, Nora Denzel, Kristin Skogen Lund, Pehr Claesson, Karin Åberg and Roger Svensson.

The hub focuses on the benefits that Ericsson Cloud RAN and Intel technology can bring to: improving energy efficiency and network performance, reducing time to market, and monetizing new business opportunities such as enterprise applications.

[81][91] and software[92][93] Ericsson offers end-to-end services for all major mobile communication standards,[94] and has three main business units.

[122] Starting in 1983 Ericsson Enterprise provided communications systems and services for businesses, public entities and educational institutions.

It produced products for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)-based private branch exchanges (PBX), wireless local area networks (WLAN), and mobile intranets.

Ericsson admitted to paying bribes, falsifying books and records and failing to implement reasonable internal accounting controls in an attempt to strengthen its position in the telecommunications industry.

[129] The leak also revealed that some subcontractors working on behalf of Ericsson paid bribes to the Islamic State in order to continue operating the telecom network in occupied regions of Iraq.