Jobs exit may be ‘lease of life’ for Sony, Nokia

Steve Jobs shook up the electronics world for a decade with the iPod, iPhone and iPad at the expense Sony Corp., Nokia Oyj and Hewlett-Packard Co. His exit as Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer may pave the way for competitors to regain market share, analysts said.

Sony and Nokia were among Apple rivals whose shares advanced during Asian and European trading amid speculation Jobs’s withdrawal may increase their ability to compete in products ranging from smartphones to tablet computers. Jobs, who will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, rescued Apple from the brink of failure and turned it into the world’s biggest technology company.

“It’s going to give competitors a bit more of a lease of life to go out and compete harder,” said Richard Windsor, global technology analyst at Nomura International Plc. “It’s been thought about, talked about endlessly for the past several years that Tim Cook would probably take over so while you get an initial knee-jerk reaction on the downside, we would probably expect that not to last very long.”

Sony climbed 2.1 percent in Tokyo, while Samsung Electronics Co., which also counts Apple as its biggest customer, gained 2.4 percent in Seoul. Nokia advanced as much as 2 percent in Helsinki. HTC Corp., the Taiwanese maker of phones that run on Google Inc.’s Android software, rose 1.4 percent in Taipei.

“If the new management team doesn’t sustain the level of innovation that Steve Jobs spearheaded, it’s going to be an opportunity for the competition in the long term,” said Lee Young Seog, a Seoul-based fund manager at Korea Investment Management Co., which oversees about $19 billion. “Still, because of Tim Cook’s competence and the system at Apple, the competitive landscape isn’t likely to change anytime soon.”

Jobs, whose transformation of Apple picked up pace from the iPod’s introduction in 2001, will become chairman. Jobs was on medical leave since Jan. 17 after combating a rare form of cancer since 2003 and surviving a liver transplant in 2009.

Since the iPod, Apple has unseated Nokia as the world’s biggest mobile-phone maker by revenue with the iPhone, while the success of the iPad tablet computer came at the expense of traditional desktop and laptop computer makers such as Hewlett-Packard and Taiwan’s Acer Inc.