* Siemens JV CEO says U.S. market share should be 10 percent
* Says acquisitions part of strategy
* Says sees relief but no recovery yet
(Adds CEO comments, detail)
By Nicola Leske
PARIS, MAY 19 (REUTERS) - Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN), a joint venture between Siemens and U.S. financial investor Gores Group, aims to more than double its U.S. market share and is keen to make acquisitions, its top executive said.
"Our market share in the U.S. is very small, below 5 percent," Chief Executive Hamid Akhavan told the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Wednesday. SEN specialises in communications systems for large corporations.
"The goal would be to more than double it, a respectable share has got to reach at least 10 percent," Akhavan said but added that "if it takes 11 years it might not be worth it but get it in three, four years that would be massive".
Akhavan, a computer engineer by training and previously chief operating officer at Deutsche Telekom, took the helm at SEN in mid-February, making him the third CEO in 18 months.
One of his challenges is to boost SEN's presence in the United States, dominated by Cisco.
Akhavan said he was not daunted and viewed the market as a "a great opportunity", adding that while SEN lacked recognition in the United States "when I get a chance to put a product in front of customer in a bake off I always win".
SEN, which has a strong presence in Europe and Asia, had hoped to gain a foothold in North America by buying parts of Canada's Nortel Networks but was outbid by Avaya last year.
Akhavan said SEN was still pursuing acquisitions.
"Acquisition is part of the picture and will be part of the picture," he said.
SEN had no key deficiencies in its product range that needed filling so it was not looking to acquire hardware except possibly in the low end product range, Akhavan said.
"We are looking at companies with good relationships with resellers," he said because SEN wants to target more and smaller companies where its direct service model would not be feasible.
After major job cuts, SEN has 14,000 employees in around 80 countries.
It had annual revenues of 3.21 billion euros ($3.99 billion) in its 2008 fiscal year but has said it will feel the impact of the global economic slowdown in 2009/2010 with sales shrinking by 12-15 percent.
"The slower spending in Europe and all these worries and concerns as businesses try to maximise the cost structure has had and will continue to have an impact," Akhavan said.
This quarter there were signs of a relief but not of a recovery yet, Akhavan said and added that he does not expect a recovery later this year either.
"We don't sense that the businesses that we deal with are convinced that the economy is on the recovery path," he said.
However, there was more activity in the United States as customers were beginning to send RFPs (request for proposals), asking for quotes and solutions.
In general the public sector was showing more signs of a pickup in communications projects than the private sector, Akhavan said.
Asked about the effect of the Greek debt crisis Akhavan said: "Customers are not paying, essentially having outstanding debt, so you could certainly tell that there is an impact."
The impact of the weakening euro could prove to be an advantage for SEN.
"We run all of our financials in euros but we price in the local currency. From what we manufacture in Europe, we can be more competitive in the U.S.," Akhavan said. ($1=.8054 Euro) (Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)