On the one hand they have to announce some sort of relationship, whether it's with Sony or Panasonic. They need someone with a proven aptitude for design of consumer electronics. He thinks Ericsson will try and shore up its phone business and will not sell its handset division. Gideon explained that consumers are less apt to buy new equipment right now. She blamed the economic slowdown as well as people holding off on purchases until third-generation wireless technology arrives in the next few years.
People tend to keep their phones for a long time now.
Before they were eager to buy new models. Now they seem to be happy enough with their old one. As we are standing in the doorway of a technology shift, people may be waiting. Kurt Hellstr m, the company's president, made the same points in a press conference early on Friday, as Ericsson shares fell 11 percent on the bad news. For the consumer products division we still have our objective to get back to profit in the second half of the year.