Shares in Ericsson have taken a beating after analysts at Deutsche Bank lowered their outlook for the Swedish equipment maker, flagging concern about its IP routing business and emerging-market risks.

The company's stock fell by around 6% on the Nasdaq during morning trading on Friday after Deutsche Bank issued a research note in which it downgraded its rating from "buy" to "hold" on Ericsson shares.

"We continue to believe that Ericsson should make progress towards its SEK9 billion [$1.05 billion] cost savings target by 2017 (4% of sales) but this is reflected in our estimates and upside from further cuts in problem areas like IP routing seems unlikely for now despite the Cisco partnership," analyst Johannes Schaller is quoted as saying in the note by StreetInsider.com.

"With worse than expected revenue declines and high EM [emerging market] risk, we expect no EPS [earnings per share] growth in 2016," Schaller is said to have elaborated.

Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) is expected to come under renewed pressure in the IP equipment market following this week's merger between rivals Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Alcatel-Lucent. (See Finn de Siècle for Alcatel-Lucent.)

IP networks represent one of the Swedish company's target growth areas but its IP capabilities have been relatively weak next to those of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU).

In November, Ericsson announced a strategic partnership with Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) -- the world's biggest maker of IP network equipment -- that looks aimed at addressing the threat posed by Nokia's takeover of Alcatel-Lucent. (See Cisco + Ericsson: From Soup to Nuts.)

Ericsson may be expected to provide updates on how its partnership with Cisco is developing when it reports full-year results on January 27.

For all the latest news from the wireless networking and services sector, check out our dedicated mobile content channel here on Light Reading.

Last October the company's shares took a tumble after it blamed economic weakness in major emerging markets, including China and Russia, for a 9% year-on-year fall in sales on a constant-currency basis. (See Ericsson Slumps on China, Russia Weakness.)

Earlier this week, Fitch Ratings said the outlook for Ericsson remained "stable," lauding the new Cisco relationship.

"The recently announced partnership with Cisco, the market leader in IP routing, should help round out Ericsson's service offering," said Fitch in a research note.

Ericsson made net income of SEK3.1 billion ($360 million) in the third quarter of 2015, 19% more than in the year-earlier period, and saw revenues increase by 3%, to SEK59.2 billion ($6.9 billion), on a reported basis.

As noted by Deutsche Bank, Ericsson is looking to reduce annual operating costs by around SEK9 billion ($1.05 billion) between 2014 and 2017 and has been laying off staff accordingly.

Employee numbers fell from 117,183 in June to 116,240 in September.

— Iain Morris, , News Editor, Light Reading