Amid rumblings that Nokia, the world leader in mobile phone market share, may miss analysts' expectations, some said a change at the top may be what the company needs. But that will bring its own challenges.

Published reports Tuesday indicated Nokia is searching to replace its current CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. Nokia's American depositary receipts rose slightly on the news, indicating investors are unhappy with the current leadership.

Kallasvuo, nicknamed OPK within the company, has been chief executive officer of Nokia since 2006. The company's stock has been in free fall, having declined 40 percent since April, and revenues are at their lowest point in more than a decade.

Though it dominates the market in many countries and is a leader outside the U.S., analysts say the company that has fallen behind in the ever-growing smartphone market. Nokia has also failed to make big inroads in the U.S. and is slipping in Europe. However, though a change may be necessary, it will likely be a struggle.

"If the personnel is internal, the risk is it'll be more of the same," Chris Versace, analyst at Think 20/20 LLC said. "If Nokia were to find an external candidate this would be interesting to watch on one hand and could offer very long term investors value, but companies are worse than tankers in terms of changing directions and odds are there will be more than a few bumps along the way."

Nokia is rumored to have approached two U.S.-based technology executives for the role, though one reportedly turned down the offer because of not wanting to move to Finland.

The smartphone market, which has been dominated recently by Apple's iPhone series and the Google Android phones, is Nokia's main cause for concern in the coming months. In order to better compete against the iPhone and Google phones, Nokia has delayed the release of its new Symbian operating system until September.

"They are not well positioned in the North American market at all," Versace said. "Their offering in smartphones is weak."

However, even in low-end phones, the market in which Nokia has dominated for the past decade, there is not a clear path for success. Versace says the company faces challenges from white-box manufacturers, fueled by chipset providers such as MediaTek. "They have been challenged on the low-end, which is why they have outsourced and reemphasized smartphones," Versace says.

"If true this is a good move. My feeling is that OPK has lost the confidence of investors and a change would be the best thing for Nokia," Gartner analyst Nick Jones said in a note. However, like Versace, Jones said there would be challenges in finding a replacement.

"The problem Nokia faces is finding a European Steve Jobs to replace OPK. The new CEO needs the experience to run a company the size of Nokia, the charisma to pacify investors, the knowledge to recognize bad products and strategies, and the courage to kill them," he added.

The company has already undergone management change in recent history. At the tail end of 2009, the company shifted its CFO Rick Simonson to head the mobile unit, until he decided to retire a month ago.