Hans Vestberg

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.

I need to build my team around my weaknesses.

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.

When you start losing market share, it's really tough to gain it back; you need the product portfolio and presence in many markets.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!'

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.

I read mails throughout the day but answer mails more in the morning and evening.

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.

For every $10 you reduce the price of the smartphone, 100 million more people will buy them.

By the end of 2020, the only region of the world that will still have a lot of 2G connections may be Africa.

I believe mobile technology has a much broader role to play. It could solve some of the biggest problems on earth.

We have the global scale, but not everyone has 4G in the world.

I have rules for everything.

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.

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.