Nokia, one of the biggest mobile phone manufacturers of the last decade, lost a lot of its market share when better, more ‘smart’ alternatives surfaced in the market. The Finnish telecom giant (which has become Nokia’s latest area of expertise) failed to catch up to the internet driven touch screen smartphone market, and nothing was the same after that. The company has been trying to make up for its fall outs, but it looks like there’s a long way to go. Nokia has announced plans to lay off up to 10,000 employees around the world, as it shifts its focus to 5G and cloud computing.
The company is trying to cut losses as it finds itself struggling even in the telecom space, with competitors like Huawei and Ericsson, which have zoomed past the Finnish telecom giant in the 5G race. The company is now trying to catch up to them, especially with Huawei’s deteriorating relationships with the west leaving a window of opportunity open for it.
The company says that it will cut about 96 jobs in UK and 300 in Finland in Nokia’s Helsinki headquarters. France, on the other hand, might be able to evade this cost cutting session, since the company already slashed more than 1,000 jobs in the region last year.
However, none of this is set in stone yet. “At this stage, however, these are only estimates. It is too early to comment in detail, as we have only just informed local works councils and expect the consultation processes to start shortly, where applicable,” a Nokia spokesperson said.
Overall, Nokia plans to save about €600m (£518m) by cutting jobs across the world, in an attempt to salvage losses and pour more money into catching up to competitors in the 5G race. This comes after the new CEO of the company-Pekka Lundmark, took charge last year, after the last management’s decisions and product missteps took a toll on Nokia’s innovation and share prices.
