Three businesses sit under the same industry heading — wireless and mobile networks — and until this summer that heading described what they did. It no longer does. Two of the three are now being paid mostly by defense ministries and police departments; the third, the one whose customers are phone companies, is shrinking.

Ericsson: the carrier-levered name is the falling one

Ericsson, the Stockholm supplier of radio access network (RAN) hardware and software to mobile operators, reported second-quarter sales of SEK 52.7bn with organic sales down 1%. Reported revenue has now fallen year over year for four consecutive quarters. Networks — the core radio business — was down 8%, with organic declines in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas; the North American acceleration the market had waited for did not arrive. Gross margin held at 48.4% against 48.0%, a real structural gain from 44.9% in 2024, but operating income still fell 1.8% and management warned that component costs "will gradually build up" through 2027 with no automatic pass-through in long-term contracts, guiding third-quarter Networks gross margin down to 48-50%.

The end market explains it. Dell'Oro Group forecasts RAN revenue growing at roughly a 1% compound annual rate as operators prioritise capital efficiency, and expects global telecom capital spending to fall outright in 2026, with North America the specific drag. Bank of America cut its target to SEK 77 from SEK 88 on the revenue miss and rising memory costs; sell-side consensus is 2 buy, 10 hold, 7 sell. The shares trade at 13.2x trailing earnings, 6.9x enterprise value to EBITDA and a 9.7% free-cash-flow yield — genuinely low — but consensus models 2026 earnings per share of SEK 5.46, some 31% below the SEK 8.00 delivered in 2025. Business CONFIRMS the decline; the valuation is doing rational work, not mispricing. (Ericsson's screened forward multiples are a currency artefact — Swedish-krona estimates against a dollar-denominated American depositary receipt — and should be ignored.)

Motorola Solutions: the raise was defense, not public safety

Motorola Solutions sells land mobile radio (LMR) systems and handsets to police, fire and government agencies, plus video security and command-centre software. Second-quarter revenue of $3.13bn rose 13.3%, an acceleration from 7.4% in the first quarter, with gross margin at 53.6% versus 51.1% and backlog at a record $15.6bn, up 11%. The company raised full-year revenue guidance to about $12.975bn and adjusted earnings to $17.62-$17.72 a share.

The composition matters more than the number: Silvus military mesh radios, lifted to $850m for the year on NATO, German, Ukrainian and Indo-Pacific demand, drove the bulk of the raise, against $75m from LMR. Motorola also agreed to buy counter-drone specialist D-Fend Solutions for $1.5bn, adding roughly $185m of revenue. That sits directly on top of NATO's July commitment of more than $40bn to counter-drone capability over five years and the US Army's $994m small counter-drone procurement request for fiscal 2027. Underneath, the D-Series radio infrastructure refresh — the first in twelve years — has customers signing five- and ten-year plans across 40-plus US statewide networks. Business CONFIRMS. Valuation is INCONCLUSIVE: 36.6x trailing and 26.9x forward earnings against consensus 2027 growth of 8.2%, 29x book and a 3.4% free-cash-flow yield, with UBS at $520 and Bank of America at $530. A $150m memory-cost headwind this year is partly offset by $60m of tariff refunds.

Ondas: real revenue, 462 million shares

Ondas Holdings builds private industrial wireless radios and Scout drones for rail, energy and defense customers. First-quarter revenue of $50.1m was nearly eleven times a year earlier, and pro-forma backlog reached $457m against $68.3m at end-2025, with full-year guidance of at least $390m. That is a genuine inflection. It is also loss-making at an operating margin of -85%; the reported $362.9m of quarterly "net income" is a non-operating fair-value item, so the trailing price-to-earnings figure is meaningless. Diluted shares went from 105m to 462m in a year, financed partly through 3% senior convertible notes. At 57.6x trailing sales — about 14x management's own guidance — and with consensus 2026 revenue of $525.7m sitting above what management has promised, valuation CONTRADICTS on any measure other than backlog growth. No second-quarter results are yet on file.

The setup

Where it stands — Two defense-levered names are advancing; the one carrier-levered name is contracting into a flat RAN market.

Would confirm — Motorola's Silvus revenue reaching the guided $850m and D-Fend closing in the second half.

Would invalidate — Ericsson's third-quarter Networks gross margin printing below the guided 48-50% range.

Watch next — Ondas' second-quarter results, its first reported quarter since backlog jumped to $457m.

Valuation — Motorola 36.6x trailing, 26.9x forward; Ericsson 13.2x trailing; Ondas 57.6x trailing sales.