Sony Ericsson Chooses New President

Struggling mobile phone manufacturer Sony Ericsson on Monday named the head of L.M. Ericsson’s Silicon Valley unit, Bert Nordberg, as its new president, and he will be replacing Hideki “Dick” Komiyama, who will be retiring on 15 October.

Nordberg, who has been working with Ericsson for past 14 years, announced that he has planned to revamp the company’s range of mobile handsets with state-of-the-art software as well as applications, a handy strategy also being followed by rivals, Nokia, Apple, and Google.

Discussing his plans after taking the helm at the company, Nordberg said: “We need to improve the product design and development processes and we need a different product portfolio to reflect what customers are asking for. And we definitely need to strengthen our offering in the mobile Internet segment.”

Nordberg further asserted that his plans will include trimming down the company’s line up of 45 handsets, and producing cellphones that work better with the internet. He also rejected rumours that Sony and Ericsson were planning to pull out from mobile-devices domains, claiming that the joint venture has produced a whopping $2.3 billion in profits since its inception in 2001.

The company, which is a joint venture between Ericsson and consumer electronics giant Sony, has been struggling hard as its market share plunged significantly by 5.1 percent since July 2008 through June this year.