Siemens meets over troubled phone unit

Siemens AG, which has lost more than 500 million euros (US$611.8 million) with mobile phones in the past year, will discuss the future of the business at an extraordinary supervisory board meeting today.

Siemens spokeswoman Maria Lahaye-Geusen said the supervisory board will hold a telephone conference to discuss the business. She declined to comment on a report in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that Siemens tomorrow will present an Asian partner for the unit.

Chief executive officer Klaus Kleinfeld is under pressure to find a partner for the business as Siemens' market share slips and losses from phones jeopardize the company's full-year earnings target. In the quarter through March, Siemens lost 138 million euros from phones.

Siemens in April said it will create a separate company for mobile and cordless phones and find one or more partners. It's Europe's second-largest handset maker behind Nokia Oyj.

Taiwan's Acer Inc had denied market speculation that the company might team up with Siemens' handset unit, company chairman Wang Jen-tang (王振堂) said on April 30 in Taipei. He said Acer has no plans to buy the German company's mobile-phone unit or hire it to make mobile phones.

German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on April 22 that Acer was in advanced talks with Siemens. Citing people familiar with the situation that it didn't identify, the paper said Acer wasn't the only company in talks with Siemens.