Wireless joint venture

This now opens the gates for merging the venture with Ericsson’s chip business. ST and Ericsson closed the merger of their mobile chip and software businesses on Tuesday, appointing Alain Dutheil as chief executive officer of the joint venture. The new company will have pro forma sales of $3.6billion, focusing on current and future mobile telephony technology and supply four of the world’s five leading handset makers. It will employ 8000 staff. Ericsson paid $700m to ST and put a further $400m into the venture.