Sony Ericsson “has struggled to build major market share around the world, and, like rivals such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Nokia Corp., has recently struggled to compete with Apple Inc. in the fast-growing smartphone market,” Sven Grundberg reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Sony Ericsson underwent a management shake-up two years ago, appointing Bert Nordberg, who previously headed Ericsson’s operations in Silicon Valley, as the company’s chief executive, replacing Sony’s Hediki ‘Dick’ Komiyama,” Grundberg reports. “Mr. Nordberg made some radical decisions: He dropped the Symbian operating system, introduced a smartphone strategy using Google Inc.’s Android platform, and gave up Sony Ericsson’s presence in the low-end market.”
Grundberg reports, “Since Mr. Nordberg took over, Sony Ericsson’s global market share has dropped steeply, from 4.3% in the third quarter of 2009 to 1.7% in the second quarter this year, according to Gartner Inc… In an interview at Sony Ericsson’s offices in Lund, Sweden, Mr. Nordberg discussed changes at the company and the consumer environment.”
Two of Nordberg’s comments stand out:
• It’s safe to say that Sony Ericsson should have taken the iPhone more seriously when it arrived in 2007.
• At this point I wouldn’t feel comfortable investing in a platform that isn’t as good as the one that we currently use. Therefore we have remained with Android, but I am quite curious about Windows Phone.
Read much more in the full interview here.
[Attribution: MacNN. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]