New Cities Foundation names Ericsson as founding member

·         Foundation's goal is to improve quality of city life

·         Urbanization one key driver of Ericsson's vision of a Networked Society

·         Ericsson to provide strategic direction on how ICT can address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) today announced that the company has been named as a founding member of the New Cities Foundation (NCF), a non-profit Swiss institution dedicated to improving the quality of life and work in the 21st-century global city.

The Foundation's creed is that cities are humanity's most important source of innovation, creativity and wealth-creation. It acts as a clearinghouse for information on urbanization and supports on-going original research, with membership open to key public and private sector entities around the world who are stakeholders in the urbanized world of the future.

Ericsson sees urbanization as the driver of development in many industries, and that Information Communications Technology (ICT) will play a key role in a city's development. During its 135 year history, Ericsson has seen several technological revolutions impact society and says we are now entering the era of the Networked Society, where everything that benefits from a connection will be connected.  Ericsson calls this connected creativity and believes cities will be the major arena where the networked society will take shape.

Fifty years ago, less than one third of the world's population lived in urban areas but that proportion is expected to increase to almost two-thirds within the next twenty years. The number of people living in urban areas is set to grow by 1.5 billion people from some 3.5 billion today to 5.0 billion in 2030.
"From Ericsson's perspective, the technological transformation now taking place has the power to address some of the biggest challenges facing rapidly expanding urban areas, issues like energy, transportation, education, population movements, CO2 emissions, and healthcare," said Jan Wareby, Senior VP and head of Sales and Marketing, Ericsson.  "We see great potential in the cross-industry collaboration and combined knowledge building that the New Cities Foundation enables with different stakeholders addressing these astonishing changes in cities throughout the world."
"Through their global technology leadership in mobile broadband, Ericsson brings a unique view to the New Cities Foundation, about how some of the biggest challenges on Earth can actually be addressed through the use of ICT in the Networked Society," said Mathieu Lefevre, Executive Director of the New Cities Foundation.

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Ericsson is the world's leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators. Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. 

Ericsson is advancing its vision of being the "prime driver in an all-communicating world" through innovation, technology, and sustainable business solutions. Working in 175 countries, more than 90,000 employees generated revenue of SEK 203.3 billion (USD 28.2 billion) in 2010. Founded in 1876 with the headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ New York.

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