Nokia nabs HTC's Seiche

Device vendor Nokia has poached Taiwanese rival HTC’s EMEA president Florian Seiche. Seiche will head the Finnish firm’s European sales team from June 15, while HTC will replace him with EMEA VP product and operations Phil Blair.

Seiche has headed HTC’s regional sales team since 2010, and has previous experience at Orange-France Telecom and Siemens. His replacement at HTC, has been with the firm since it launched in EMEA in 2005. Blair has also worked closely with Seiche as co-founder in the region, according to HTC.

“Phil’s depth of experience in the smartphone market, intrinsic understanding of mobile products and long-standing relationships with key industry partners put him in a strong position to create new opportunities for the business, taking HTC into its next phase of growth,” HTC said.

In January 2013, HTC saw itself slip out of the world’s top five smartphone vendors, according to research firm IDC, when it was surpassed by Huawei and Sony.

In February, Nokia launched two new Lumia Windows Phone devices, each priced to specifically target a particular consumer segment—’Trendy Youthful’ and ‘Low-cost and Quality’. The Finnish firm is hopeful of reversing a decline that led to it posting an €2.3bn operating loss in 2012; more than twice as deep as that recorded a year earlier. However, the firm posted an operating profit of €439m in 4Q12, up from a loss of €954m recorded in the same quarter of 2011.