Announcing a change at the helm of its affairs on Monday, loss-plagued mobile handset maker Sony Ericsson said that the company's President and CEO Dick Komiyama will step down from his post by the year-end; and that Ericsson executive Bert Nordberg will take over the reins of the company with effect from October 15.

Another change that will take effect on the mentioned date includes the Sony Corp CEO Howard Stringer taking over as Chairman of the Sony Ericsson. Stringer will be replacing Carl-Henric Svanberg - the CEO of L. M. Ericsson Telephone Co - who will assume responsibility as Chairman of BP Plc in January.

About Nordberg's appointment, Komiyama said: "The Sony Ericsson transformation program I began over a year ago is more than half-way completed. I believe it is the right time for me to begin transferring the leadership of the company to a person who is able to complete the transformation program and lead Sony Ericsson through its next phase of development."

With Sony Ericsson having posted a pretax loss of 283 million euros in July, the change in headship of the company - a 50-50 joint venture between Japanese Sony and Swedish Ericsson - comes amid widespread market speculations of a possible disintegration of the company.

However, both Sony and Ericsson have reiterated their commitment, saying that they would inject more money into it if required!