The board of telecommunications equipment giant Ericsson has forced its CEO, Hans Vestberg, to step down today with immediate effect after the board agreed that he wasn’t the person to turn Ericsson around.
Ericsson said that Vestberg, who led the Swedish firm for seven years, would be replaced in the short term by chief financial officer Jan Frykhammar.
It’s a tough period for the company that had sacked thousands of workers this year alone following the stagnant nature of the market for its product. In addition to the lay offs, it added that it is still looking to drastically cut costs.
The company found itself in the current predicament because most operators are done rolling out the current generation of mobile broadband networks, known as 4G or LTE, and the next generation, so-called 5G, doesn’t exist yet—everyone agrees that it’s supposed to be faster and more reliable, and there’s a general hope for a roll-out around 2020, but the underlying technical standards have not been established, so no-one can build anything yet.
