New York, January 25 (FinanceEnquiry.com) - Sluggish spending by North American customers led to Ericsson AB missing analyst estimates of fourth-quarter profit and falling the most in more than four years in Stockholm. The net income of the world’s largest maker of wireless networks dropped to 1.15 billion kronor ($170 million) from 4.32 billion kronor a year earlier, against analysts’ average estimate of 4.24 billion kronor.

At an investor meeting on November 9, the CFO of the company said that Ericsson is in the process of upgrading networks in Europe by adopting faster technologies that would enable customers to access the Internet at desktop speeds from smartphones and tablets. However, for at least two years, these modernization drives will lead to smaller margins than the ongoing contracts.

In Stockholm trading at 9:10 a.m., shares of Ericsson slumped 15 percent to 58.8 kronor, falling the most since Oct. 16 2007. It was also the biggest loser on the Stoxx 600 Technology Index, which went down 2.3 percent. In the fourth quarter, Ericsson took 0.7 million kronor in restructuring charges and its revenue for the quarter gained 1 percent to 63.7 billion kronor, against average analyst estimate of 67.4 billion kronor. The market is set to expand to $45.1 billion in 2015, mainly because of upgrades to serve smart device users.