Ericsson In The Cross Hairs

摘要

So you're the new CEO of Ericsson, the wildly successful Swedish telephone giant with a share price that has rocketed 40-fold in just seven years. How do you keep the momentum going? Well, in the case of Sven-Christer Nilsson, the 53-year-old executive chosen to head the company following the retirement of Lars Ramquist, it might help to be a circus juggler. Nilsson will have to keep several balls in the air at once—maintaining a torrent of mobile-phone profits, downsizing unprofitable manufacturing units, and positioning the company for a leap into hot new Internet technology. Nilsson is relatively unknown, and he says he was nearly as stunned as everyone else at the board's decision to reach down and bet on someone from the third tier of management for a successor to Ramquist. He will have to raise his profile fast to be an effective leader of this dynamic enterprise. Ericsson now controls 40% of the world market for mobile-telephone systems and last year raised its share of the cellular-handset market to 16.4%, giving it third place behind Motorola and Finland's Nokia. Primarily as a result of the company's strength in mobile, sales grew by 35% in 1997, to $21 billion, while profits soared 70%, to $2.1 billion. "We love the long-term growth prospects of the wireless industry, and we think Ericsson will outperform the industry," says Richard Parower, technology analyst at San Francisco-based Montgomery Funds.