In an interview with the Financial Times, Hans Vestberg, incoming chief executive at Ericsson, pledged continuity at the vendor, claiming he will stick with his predecessor’s plan of organic growth and saw no reason to accelerate the firm’s cost-cutting programme. It was announced this week that the incumbent CEO, Carl-Henric Svanberg, is to become chairman of UK energy giant BP, making way for Vestberg to become Ericsson CEO in January. “Our goal is to continue [our market] leadership,” Vestberg said. “[We] are determined all our efforts will be there in order to stay in the lead.” According to the report, Ericsson has a dominant 37 percent share of the mobile equipment market but its leadership is under pressure from Chinese firms such as Huawei.

Vestberg said Ericsson had seen greater caution from some operator customers in the first three months of this year compared to 4Q08. “I do not have a crystal ball to say we have bottomed out or whatever in this downturn,” he noted. However, he said that he saw no need to deepen the company’s cost-cutting programme, which is targeting annual savings of SEK10 billion (US$1.2 billion) by the middle of 2010, although he did not rule out further measures if necessary. He also pledged his support to turnaround Sony Ericsson, its beleaguered handset joint-venture with Japan’s Sony, but pulled short of issuing any long-term commitment. “Our main focus now is to make a turnaround on this and support management, together with Sony. There are no other discussions as to whether we are long term or not,” he said. Analysts estimate that Sony and Ericsson may have to inject up to EUR500 million (US$700 million) each into the joint-venture before the end of the year.