The world's top mobile phone maker
Nokia is to
lay off 1700 staff worldwide to save costs in reaction to
slowing global sales.
The cuts will take place in its Devices and Markets units as
well as head office and global support functions. Nokia UK has not
disclosed how many local staff will be affected. The firm has
started negotiations with unions and staff representatives.
In a statement Nokia said some jobs were redundant following its
acquisition of Symbian. Nokia has already set up the Symbian
Foundation to convert the mobile operating system to an open system
by 2010 and to encourage software developers to write for the
Symbian platform.
Nokia's move confirms a
prediction
by market research firm Gartner that sales of mobile phones will
drop 4% this year from 1.224 billion.
Gartner said smartphone sales will still grow, but market leader
Nokia is under pressure from Research in Motion's Blackberry
products. Last year Nokia's market share of smartphone unit sales
dropped from 50.1% to 40.8%, while RIM's rose from 10.9% to
19.5%.
Nokia's Symbian also faces competition from Apple's iPhone and
Google's Android as well as RIM as the operating system of choice.
According to Gartner, Symbian's market share for the last quarter
of 2008 slipped from 62.3% to 47%, and this was before iPhone and
Android really hit the market.