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Michael Treschow has informed the Nomination Committee that he will resign as Chairman of the Board in 2011 or 2012 after spending nearly a decade at the helm of the world's biggest mobile networks maker.

Michael Treschow, who took over as the company chairman in March 2002, said it "has been an exciting journey" to follow Ericsson and the industry during the years.

He has led the work to appoint two chief executives, Henric Svanberg in 2003 and Hans Vesterberg last year, when Svanberg moved on to become chairman of BP. The company has a turnover of 206 billion kronor ($30 billion) and 88,000 employees in more than 175 countries.

"Our founder, Lars-Magnus Ericsson, had a vision when he started the company in 1876 that communication is a basic human need. It has been an exciting journey to follow Ericsson and the industry during my years' in the company. When I joined, one billion people had access to a mobile phone. Today, more than five billion of the world's population has access to mobile communications", said Michael Treschow.

"Ericsson and the industry are now in the initial phase of rolling out mobile broadband. Today, less than 400 million people have mobile broadband and in 2015, Ericsson expects more than 3.4 billion people to have mobile broadband. It is an exciting future ahead of Ericsson, but taking into account its strong market and financial position, it is now the right time to hand over to a successor after nine years in this position," he added.

Michael Treschow, born in 1943, is also Chairman of Unilever NV and Unilever PLC and Director of the Board of ABB and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. He has also been Chairman and CEO of Electrolux and CEO of Atlas Copco.

Ericsson's nomination committee, which is appointed by its largest owners, will propose a new chairman at the company's annual general meeting either next year or in 2012, the statement said.

Following Monday's news, Ericsson saw its share price drop 1.14 percent in early afternoon trading on the Stockholm stock exchange, which was down 0.42 percent.