When you start losing market share, it's really tough to gain it back; you need the product portfolio and presence in many markets.
Hans Vestberg
I think that we are trying to put data communications, telecommunications and media communications together and be the No. 1 player there.
We want to be on the edge of technology all of the time. We think long-term.
Our take was that if we are going to support our customers, we have to help them with video distribution, whether that is iPad, TV, small screen or large screen.
What was really tough for me was that Lars Magnus Ericsson founded Ericsson in 1876; we've always had a consumer product. And I'm the 16th CEO of Ericsson, and I decided that we don't have any consumer products anymore.
By the end of 2020, the only region of the world that will still have a lot of 2G connections may be Africa.
When I look into the Ericsson's mobility report that has predictions till 2018, the majority of people having mobile broadband by 2018 will be on 3G.
It is very difficult for me to speculate as to how long it will take for the LTE-TDD ecosystem to mature. Of course, the whole industry is speaking of scale and a combination of scale in order to get more efficiency in the ecosystem.
I need to build my team around my weaknesses.
I believe mobile technology has a much broader role to play. It could solve some of the biggest problems on earth.
For every $10 you reduce the price of the smartphone, 100 million more people will buy them.
For us, it is very important all the time that our core business is really good but that we don't stop moving.
It's always great to have a purpose of a meeting and an ending for it, but it's even more important to be present and have an engagement on the topic you're doing, to create an environment and energy around that meeting, so everybody goes from there, 'That's great; we can take it forward!'
I was taking a break from university so I could play handball full-time for a year.
In order to have the next generation of modems, you would need to pour in even more R&D spending. We came to the conclusion that we're going to have a tough time to really see that we are going to succeed in the modems business.
We need to understand what innovation will be built on top of our networks.
We have the global scale, but not everyone has 4G in the world.
When it comes to meetings and preparing for that, it doesn't matter if it's a meeting with the U.N.; with a large operator, CEO, or chairman; or if I have an internal meeting - in all cases, I know that the energy and the engagement in every discussion is extremely important.
Men can't do much to change; we have to wear suits, although I never wear a tie, apart from in Asia sometimes. So I decided to grow my hair.
Today there are two points where a car manufacturer has interaction with you as an owner of a car. One, you buy the car. Two, you go to the car shop to repair the car.
I have rules for everything.
The infrastructure we provide is the same in a remote town in Africa or New York or an archipelago in Sweden: we use the same system, and the chips inside the phone are the same.
Even if you buy a Finnish, Korean or American phone - it will be Ericsson on the inside.
We do a lot of consumer research. Consumers believe the smartphone will be the remote, meaning that it will orchestrate a lot of things. So maybe you will take your connectivity with you to the car.
You don't need to recall 100,000 cars because you need to fix something. That can be done with a download of software.
You're going to see this 'Internet of things' start demanding network performance and making the networks much more aware of what is on top of them.
We want to be number one, from the ingestion of content to the play-out to any type of channel. Everything between there, you should see Ericsson if you are a broadcaster, telecoms operator, or cable operator.
You can always think that we're old and not innovative, but there is no company that can limp on for 139 years without being creative and having the genes to change.
Remember, China is the largest country in the world, so they have the confidence, the capital and resources to create large companies.
I said we're going to leave phones, and so we did. We sold it to Sony.
The IT bubble is the IT bubble, and of course, we became a company that contracted dramatically in 2001 and 2002: we basically came down by 45,000 people - a dramatic ramp-down.
When I came into the CEO office, I basically changed the entire management team. We knew that we had to change the company, so we needed a new set of leaders.
India is an important market for Ericsson, not only as a telecom market but also as a global hub for R&D.
I manage my business; politicians are doing their business. I can only work within their rules and regulations. I can't pick up a political fight.
I believe in free trade. I don't support regulating trade prices between different regions. Our point of view is we don't want trade barriers between different countries.
There are so many devices that can receive video, creating complexities, because suddenly you can have a TV, laptop, smartphone, pads. And they are of different sizes. It's clear that you need to standardise and get a much more efficient TV delivery.
It is users that are driving the networks with innovations on top of the networks and with innovations in the devices space. This is very healthy.
For us, we are moving a company that has been around for 137 years to the next level so that we can be there for the next 137 years.
For us to stay competitive, we're transforming our services business to be reliable and flexible.
No day is similar to another, but usually mail is part of my start of the day. Our company never sleeps: we have business in 180 countries, so there are no real mornings or nights.
I read mails throughout the day but answer mails more in the morning and evening.
If I am in Sweden, I try to get home to be with my children. I can do work after that from home.
My mail address is open for anyone, and I read all my mails by myself.
Historically, the mobile industry has been focused on the consumer, getting better performance and throughput to their devices.
