Ericsson is focusing on acquiring small companies to expand its services, in order to enter a price-competitive market.

Ericsson’s CEO says the company is still in the market looking for more acquisitions, albeit smaller ones, after disbursing more than $7 billion to buy the Cradlepoint network company and the Vonage communications platform.

Unlike Nokia, which announced a new strategy focused on services to other companies, Ericsson plans to continue to focus on its business of selling to communications service providers (CSPs) or telecom operators, in addition to expanding its offer for companies.

Although the global enterprise business, which revolves around private 5G and factory automation, has yet to grow significantly, it has been a melting pot of alliances between equipment manufacturers, mobile operators and big technology companies.

“We will need to broaden our business offering, so you will see smaller acquisitions,” CEO Borje Ekholm told  merdia the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Monday.

Ericsson bets on continuing to make acquisitions, albeit minor ones

“Nothing big, because we would rather consolidate what we have now, and really expand in that next step.”

Ekholm said he expected the company’s enterprise offering to grow “quite quickly,” and that it could over time make up for sluggish demand for its CSP offering.

“Over time, it should offset slower, or even negative, growth in our CSP business. Today it is much smaller but, in the long term, it is clear that the ambition is to have a more balanced portfolio.”

Ericsson, which last week announced plans to cut 8,500 employees, has seen its global margins erode as growth now comes mainly from fiercely price-competitive markets such as India and its once-big Chinese market has slowed to become a drip.