Sony Mobile with new CEO: Kunimasa Suzuki.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Sony Mobile with new CEO: Kunimasa Suzuki.

Sony Mobile has announced that Sony Corporation's corporate executive officer and executive VP Kunimasa Suzuki (pictured) will become its new president and CEO from 16 May.

Suzuki will replace Bert Nordberg who headed up the business during its transition from Sony Ericsson to Sony Mobile following Ericsson’s exit from the handset joint venture, first announced last October. Nordberg becomes chairman of the Sony Mobile Communications board.

It was announced last week that Suzuki would assume responsibility for planning and design of all of Sony’s consumer products and services and to drive the horizontal integration of different product lines. The mobile business has been identified by Sony as one of its core electronics business areas.

Suzuki will continue in his Sony Corporation roles alongside his responsibility for the mobile division, and will be based in Lund, Sweden and Tokyo. Yoshihisa Ishida and Kristian Tear will continue as deputy CEO and executive VP of slaes and marketing for Sony Mobile, respectively.

“[Suzuki] is a strong leader and the right person to oversee Sony Mobile Communications as we establish a new business structure as ’One Sony’ intended to reinforce and accelerate our overall business management,” said Sony Corporation president and CEO Kazuo Hirai.

“Bert Nordberg has done an outstanding job in transforming Sony Ericsson, now Sony Mobile Communications, from a feature phone to a smartphone company,” Hirai added.

Speaking about his new role, Suzuki reiterated Sony Mobile’s plan to focus exclusively on smartphones in 2012. The first new smartphones since the exit of Ericsson were unveiled at GSMA Mobile World Congress in February.