Samsung Networks recently hired two high-level Ericsson executives to help the company increase its network business, and specifically to sell more 5G equipment.

According to the Korea Herald, which cited unidentified industry sources, Samsung  formed a task force within its network business division to introduce a new business strategy and hired Henrik Jansson as corporate vice president, new business strategy, to oversee it. According to Janssonā€™s LinkedIn profile, prior to joining Samsung earlier this month he worked for Ericsson for 22 years in a variety of network sales roles including most recently overseeing key accounts like Vodafone and Virgin Media O2.

In addition, Samsung hired Jo Mi-sun as its corporate vice president and head of business development where she will be in charge of finding new business in Europe. According to Jo Mi-sunā€™s LinkedIn profile, she was a 10-year veteran of Ericsson and most recently served as the companyā€™s head of sustainability and corporate responsibility.  

Samsung has been aggressively pursuing deals with U.S. operators. Last year the company secured a multi-year deal, valued at more than $1 billion, with Dish Network to supply open radio access network (open RAN) and virtualized RAN solutions to the operator. In addition, in 2020 Samsung inked a $6.65 billion deal with Verizon to supply the operator with 5G RAN gear.

According to research firm Dellā€™Oro Group, Samsung is considered one of the top vendors in open RAN. Last December Dellā€™Oro identified Samsung, Fujitsu, NEC and Mavenir as the top global open RAN vendors.Ā  The firm said that much of the success of those four vendors was due to large scale deployments in North America. Ā 

Samsung is scheduled to report its Q4 earnings tomorrow. The company has warned that its profits could nosedive as much 69% due to weak demand for memory chips.

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