page_title: Ericsson
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Ericsson / History / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: English: Swedish inventor sv:Lars Magnus Ericsson (1846-1926). Picture taken from the frontpage of sv:Hvar 8 dag #34 1906.
context_page_description: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company offers services, software and infrastructure in information and communications technology for telecommunications operators, traditional telecommunications and Internet Protocol networking equipment, mobile and fixed broadband, operations and business support services, cable television, IPTV, video systems, and an extensive services operation.
  Ericsson had a 27% market share in the 2G/3G/4G mobile network infrastructure market in 2018, thus being the largest such non-Chinese company.
  The company was founded in 1876 by Lars Magnus Ericsson and was taken over by the Wallenberg family in 1960; today, the family, through its holding company Investor AB, owns a controlling 22.53% voting power. As of 2016 it is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The company employs around 95,000 people and operates in around 180 countries. Ericsson holds over 49,000 granted patents as of September 2019, including many in wireless communications. Ericsson is the inventor of Bluetooth technology.
context_section_description: 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 own telephone equipment. His telephones were not technically innovative. In 1878 he made an agreement to supply telephones and switchboards to Sweden's first telecommunications operating company, Stockholms Allmänna Telefonaktiebolag.
caption: Lars Magnus Ericsson
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