ST-Ericsson replaces CEO

ST-Ericsson will replace its current president and CEO Gilles Delfassy with COO Didier Lamouche starting December as it looks to move away from manufacturing feature phones to smartphones and tablets

According to a company press statement released on Monday, the microchip joint venture between STMicroelectronics and Ericsson announced that Lamouche, who has been with the company since April 2011, will retain his current COO title and take on the CEO role at the same time.

ST-Ericsson is currently in the midst of revamping its product roadmap to shift away from legacy feature phones and toward smartphone and tablet platforms, the company stated. With the leadership change, it enters the stage where it focuses on "proliferating design wins and scaling up and delivering volume" to ensure its portfolio attains sustainable profitability and growth, it added.

In a separate Reuters article published on Monday, ST-Ericsson was reported as never having made a quarterly profit and has been cutting costs since its establishment in 2009. It had been a key supplier for Nokia's Symbian platform but was hit hard when the handset maker switched to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform and it could not secure enough new deals to compensate for the loss of business, it stated.

A press release by ST-Ericsson issued in early November reiterated that the company will remain a key partner for Nokia for the Windows Phone platform, though.