Nokia Siemens Networks CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie will step down this fall and be replaced by the infrastructure vendor's services chief, Rajeev Suri. The change in leadership comes as Nokia Siemens--a joint venture between Finland's Nokia and Germany's Siemens--loses market share to rival Ericsson and Chinese startups Huawei and ZTE. 
Suri will officially take over as CEO Oct. 1, and Beresford-Wylie will help him through a transition period before leaving the company Nov. 1. Suri, who has 20 years of experience in the telecom sector, currently heads up the global operations of Nokia Siemens' key services business, and was previously the head of the joint venture's Asia Pacific operations.
Beresford-Wylie joined Nokia in 1998 and was formerly the chief of Nokia's infrastructure business group. When Nokia Siemens began its operations in April 2007, he was made CEO. The company is the second largest vendor by market share after Ericsson, according to research firm Dell'Oro Group.
However, Nokia Siemens has had a rocky few months. The firm entered a $650 million bid for Nortel Network's CDMA and LTE assets--and Beresford-Wylie expressed confidence that the company would secure the assets and gain a stronger foothold in the North American market--only to see Ericsson swoop in and make the winning $1.13 billion bid. The vendor's market share also eroded to 20 percent in the second quarter, down from 26 percent in the year-ago quarter, according to Dell'Oro.
In July, Nokia said it expected the mobile infrastructure market overall to decline 10 percent this year, and said it expects NSN's market share to decline moderately this year. Previously, the company said it expected NSN's market share would be flat this year.
Nokia Siemens' front-office shuffle is the second big shakeup at the top of a major equipment vendor this summer. In late June, Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said he would step down at the end of the year to become chairman of oil giant BP. The Swedish equipment maker's CFO, Hans Vestberg, will replace him as CEO Jan. 1, 2010.
For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this release
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