Nokia to close German factory, 2,300 jobs affected
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Finland's Nokia, the top global mobile phone manufacturer, said Tuesday that it planned to close a factory in Germany by mid-year which employs 2,300 workers.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that the No. 3 cell phone operator in the country is preparing to lay off thousands of workers to help get its business back on track.
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Nokia Siemens Networks, the Finnish-German telecom networks manufacturer, said Friday it would cut 2,290 jobs in Germany as part of a restructuring plan.
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Anger in Germany against mobile phone giant Nokia for closing a factory grew on Saturday with the head of one of the parties in the governing coalition joining the calls for a boycott.
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T-Mobile, Germany's leading mobile phone operator, said it was planning to axe up to 2,200 jobs as part of a  one-billion-euro (1.3-billion-dollar) cost-cutting drive to boost profitability in face of current difficult market conditions.
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E90 production 'halted - will restart' Production of Nokia's troubled E90 "Communicator" has been halted, the company has confirmed to Dutch trade paper Telecom.â¦
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German unions on Thursday called for a  consumer boycott of Nokia (NOK1V.HE) products to protest  against the cellphone maker's plans to close a German plant.
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Nokia plans to fold all its mobile phone development efforts into a single new business unit.
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Germany will bear the brunt of the approximately 12,000 job losses, but the company will stop short of immediate factory closures, GM sources said.
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After a high-level meeting today, Nokia has agreed to serve on a joint task force to review its decision to close a cell phone plant in Bochum, Germany. Meanwhile, Nokia's cheaper facility under construction in Romania is in trouble.
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(InfoWorld) - BenQ Mobile is closing down a handset facility in Taiwan amid an ongoing restructuring of its operations, calling reported plans to outsource production altogether "speculation." The closure of the facility is part of aÂ massive restructuring effortÂ parent company BenQ announced last month, after it failed to make good on a promise to turn around its financial performance in the second quarter. The company's mobile phone business has struggled ever since itÂ took over Siemens' loss-making mobile phone divisionÂ in a high profile deal last year. It also highlights cutthroat competition in the mobile phone industry as leaders such as Nokia and MotorolaÂ grab market share. The handset business had proved so tough for Siemens that it agreed to pay BenQ â¬250 million ($317 million) to take the ailing division off its hands. BenQ has posted losses for the three quarters that have passed since the deal was finalized. The Taiwanese handset facility will close by the end of this year, affecting over 100 workers. Foreign workers invited to Taiwan to work the factory floor will be sent home, while some Taiwanese workers will retire and others will be relocated to other BenQ factories, said Albert Lin, a communications officer at BenQ. The operation accounts for less than 10 percent of BenQ Mobile's handset production. "This is part of BenQ Mobile's plan to cut costs and increase efficiency," he said. He also called news reports from Germany, which say BenQ Mobile plans to sell or close all of its handset factories and farm production out to a contract manufacturer, "speculation," and refused further comment. It's the second series of layoffs announced by the mobile phone maker so far this year. In July, BenQ Mobile said it planned to cut 277 jobs at its facility in Munich, Germany, in addition to releasing 250 German contract employees that work offsite. BenQ Mobile's parent company, BenQ Corp., also said it planned to restructure its operations in an effort to increase cash available to finance BenQ Mobile as it struggles toward profitability. BenQ last month said it would split its name brand division and manufacturing operations into separate companies, a change that would not affect its mobile phone factories. BenQ Mobile planned to continue producing its own handsets due to the degree of customization required by network operators, among other reasons, Clemens Joos, CEO of BenQ Mobile, said at the time. BenQ Mobile faces an uphill battle to return to profitability, mainly because larger rivals have stepped up the competition and are grabbing market share from smaller companies in the industry. BenQ's share of the handset market dropped to 3.2 percent in the second quarter, from 4.8 percent the same time last year, according to market researcher Gartner. Meanwhile, Nokia's share rose to 33.6 percent from 31.6 percent, and Motorola's increased to 21.9 percent from 17.7 percent. Â
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Brussels braced for a major wave of lay-offs at the city's biggest employer after German carmaker Volkswagen announced plans to cut two-thirds of the jobs at its plant in the Belgian capital.
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Connecting people? German politicians will investigate whether Nokia took unfair advantage of state and EU subsidies after it announced the closure of its handset assembly plant in Bochum in North Rhine-Westphalia. Nokia employed more than 2,300 people there in exchange for EU subsidies.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Nokia Corp., the world's top handset maker, said on Thursday it plans to reshuffle 700 employees over the next few months, citing a need to improve its focus and efficiency. Nokia will try to move some employees into new positions in the company, while others could take voluntary severance packages, said Arja Suominen, vice president of communications. She said she did not know many employees would be laid off, although the company will study the shuffle. Those affected are 360 employees in Nokia's Enterprise Solutions business group; 140 in the Software Platforms area of its Technology Platforms unit; 130 who deal with the company's global IT operations; and 30 in Customer and Market Operations. It wasn't clear where the remaining 40 employees work, although Nokia said the changes would affect a maximum of 700 workers. Nokia said 340 of those staff affected are based in Finland. Nokia employs 68,000 worldwide. Nokia said its Enterprise Solutions division would take a sharper focus on markets where there is a greater return on investment. Nokia posted losses for the division in every quarter in fiscal 2006, including an operating loss of â¬64 million (US$83 million) in the fourth quarter. "It's very clear we will need to make that business profitable," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of Nokia, referring to the enterprise division. "We're looking at different options in order to do that." He spoke during a press conference at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Monday and didn't hint at the cuts announced on Thursday. Nokia said it also wanted greater efficiency from the R&D (research and development) efforts of its Technology Platforms unit. Nokia has suffered declining sales in North America while the average selling price of its models has also fallen. However, profits and revenue have remained strong, and the company reported a 19 percent increase in net profit for its fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2006, over a year prior, up to â¬1.3 billion. Â  Nancy Gohring in Barcelona contributed to this report.
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Nokia (NOK1V.HE), the world's top  cellphone maker, said on Tuesday it plans to close its plant in  Bochum, Germany, by mid-2008 and may cut up to 2,300 staff as  it moves production to lower-cost regions.
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German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck  said on Friday that Nokia's (NOK1V.HE) decision to close a  plant in Germany was an example of "caravan capitalism," and  that the firm was risking its reputation.
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Deutsche Telekom AG's mobile phone arm, T-Mobile, said Thursday it would likely shed 2,200 jobs &#151; about 10 percent of its work force &#151; in order to save &#36;195 million over the next two years. It said the cuts will be in Europe.