Failure to produce a rival to the iPhone has resulted in the axe for Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
Although Nokia is outselling iPhones by 15 to 1 on units, the iPhone is generating five times the profits of Nokia - $291m to an estimated $1.6bn in Q2 2010.
Kallasvuo, who became CEO in 2006, was faced with the iPhone launch in 2007. Since then Nokia has been unable to respond, though its N8 phone, said to be its iPhone challenger, is due to be launched this month.
Kallasvuo leaves with a hand-out of Euros 4.6m
Nokia’s new CEO, starting Sept 21st, is to be Stephen Elop from Microsoft, previously with Juniper, Adobe and Macromedia.
"We believe that Stephen will be able to drive both innovation and efficient execution of the company strategy in order to deliver increased value to our shareholders," says Nokia chairman, and former CEO, Jorma Ollila.
Nokia has 34% market share in mobile phones and 37% market share in smartphones, according to Gartner Dataquest.