Nokia said Thursday that it would slash 10,000 jobs, or 19 percent of its work force, by the end of 2013 as part of an emergency overhaul that includes closing research centers and a factory in Germany, Canada and Finland, and the departures of three senior executives, reports Kevin J. O’Brien from Berlin in The New York Times.
The company also warned investors that its loss was likely to be greater in the second quarter, which ends June 30, than it was in the first, and that the negative effects of its transition to a Windows-based smartphone business would continue into the third quarter.
Although Nokia was once the undisputed global leader in the mobile phone business, its fortunes have been fading. It has been overtaken by smartphones from Apple, as well as Samsung and other makers of handsets running Google’s Android operating system.
In February 2011, Nokia and Microsoft joined forces to produce the Lumia line of smartphones, which run Microsoft’s new Windows Phone operating system. But even though Lumia devices have won critical praise, sales have not been strong enough to offset declines in Nokia’s main business — smartphones running the company’s own Symbian operating system, which it is phasing out.
