Motorola Chief Executive Ed Zander said on Thursday he was confident that new mobile phone models would help him gain market share as he revamped his firm's desire to dethrone industry leader Nokia. "I try to take market share from anyone, anywhere. Taking market share, you always look at everyone around you and we're looking at the front runner," Zander told Reuters on the sidelines of the Israel Export Institute conference.
Zander's confidence was built on some of the hottest phones Motorola has launched in many years, such as the recently introduced Razr V3 ultra-slim flip phone.
"We have the best product and line-up in many years. We're poised to take market share in many areas," he added.
Zander's ambitious comments come at a crucial moment for the world's second biggest handset maker, which has lost market share so far this year. Analysts have been speculating that Samsung Electronics from South Korea will soon take over the No 2 spot from the United States-based company.
Motorola's third-quarter market share slipped to 13.9 percent from 15 percent a year earlier, with Samsung climbing to 13.5 percent from 11.2 percent, Strategy Analytics said. The global mobile phone market is worth roughly $100 billion a year.
But Zander said that new models will provide the "oomph" Motorola needs to accelerate sales growth again.
"We're excited about our position. Motorola is cool again," Zander said, adding he was confident Motorola could churn out enough products to meet demand. Bottlenecks in the production of popular models put a damper on Motorola's sales in the past, and Zander - who joined from Sun Microsystems almost a year ago - has been busy improving operations and execution.
"We will meet our targets," Zander said, referring to the Razr.
His company's newly appointed president, Ron Garriques, told investors in a conference call yesterday that he expected "very strong" holiday sales, fuelled by the new models.
Motorola has launched 10 new models this quarter and plans another 10 introductions later this year.
The new Razr handset is being shipped in Asia and Europe and mobile carrier Cingular Wireless, newly merged with AT&T Wireless, will introduce the phone in the United States.
Motorola's gains also depend on Nokia losses, and the Finnish giant has lost even more market share than Motorola this year, losing more than three percentage points at 30.6 percent.
Nokia said last week it still aimed to reach a 40 percent market share, though many analysts now believe that will be difficult to achieve.
Motorola was overtaken by Nokia as the world's leading cell phone maker some six years ago, and in recent years has become less vocal about reclaiming the top spot.
Zander also said that, barring economic disaster, the mobile phone industry will continue to grow, but gave no more details.
His comments echo those of rivals such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson who have forecast up to 10 percent growth next year, down from around 30 percent this year.
With some 650 million mobile phones sold to consumers this year, Zander reckons the global handset market will grow to one billion units over the next few years as more consumers in emerging markets buy their first handsets and those in rich countries trade in their old models for new ones with cameras and ready for third-generation networks for video telephony.
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