Ericsson has denied rumors that the company's new partner Cisco is interested in bidding for the company.
In a market statement, Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg denied reports that Cisco has expressed an interest in acquiring Ericsson during negotiations over their new network partnership.
“We note that there are rumors in the market regarding an acquisition of Ericsson by Cisco possibly spurred by the recent announcement of a partnership between our two companies,” Verstberg said.
“The talks leading up to the partnership announcement have been ongoing for a year and there have not been any discussions whatsoever on a merger or an acquisition.”
Ericsson and Cisco announced last week that they have teamed up to “create networks of the future.”
The wide-ranging agreement covers collaboration on IP licensing, R&D, standards development and a broad-ranging reseller agreement. It is expected to create a revenue opportunity of at least $1 billion for each partner in areas including 5G, cloud computing and the IoT.