Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson reported on Thursday a 16 percent rise in second-quarter earnings amid a global recovery of demand for telephone networks.

Net profit between April and June came in at 5.8 billion Swedish kronor (744 million US dollars), against 5.0 billion a year earlier, according to Radio Sweden.

Sales rose to 38.4 billion kronor from 32.6 billion and earnings per share to 0.37 kronor from 0.31.

Ericsson's Chief executive Carl-Henric Svanberg said that the quarterly performance, which beat financial analysts' expectations, had been "robust".

Swedish market forecasters had expected on average a sales figure of 35.1 billion kronor.

The company, the world's largest supplier of mobile telephone systems, benefited from an accelerating roll out of third generation mobile phone networks in North America, as well as demand for older second generation GSM technology in emerging markets.

Source: Xinhua