CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said operators are moving toward convergent charging and billing, and said Ericsson and LHS have a strong portfolio of prepaid and postpaid software to capture the opportunity.
Ericsson claims a 20% market share in prepaid billing software, a growth area with a 150-strong customer base to which it will now be able to add LHS’s 150 customers. The two companies are already partners, a relationship LHS shares will Alcatel-Lucent.
LHS, which held an IPO last year, is growing strongly and in 2006 increased revenue by 54% to 71.6m euros ($95.6m). The company’s origins stretch back to the 1990s, and went public on Nasdaq in 1997. In 2000 it was acquired by Sema, which in turn was acquired by Schlumberger the following year.
When Schlumberger decided to concentrate on its core business, LHS was acquired by an investment group and re-established as an independent company.
