While Nokia’s consumer technology unit is what often kept the company in the news in its heydays, the Finnish firm’s bread-and-butter happens to be its telecom equipment business which competes with the likes of Ericsson, Huawei, Cisco and ZTE in the global marketplace. Back in April, last year, the Finland-based company had announced its acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent in a deal that was reportedly worth a whopping €15.6 billion. Since January this year, Nokia officially owns around 79% of the French-American telecom equipment giant that was once one of the major competitors of the Finnish company. However, earlier reports had already indicated that it might not be all smooth sailing for Nokia post the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition, and those predictions are now turning out to be pretty spot-on.
According to Reuters, Nokia is putting in place a plan to reduce costs and increase synergy by reducing the overlap of personnel following the aforementioned deal, thereby hoping to cut €900 million in operating costs by the year 2018. According to the company’s President and CEO, Mr. Rajeev Suri, “These actions are designed to ensure that Nokia remains a strong industry leader”. While Nokia has officially announced its plans to cut its workforce by 1,300 in its home country of Finland, a spokesperson for the company refused to give any further details regarding any future plans of job cuts by the Finnish telecom equipment major. The company reportedly employs around 6,850 people in Finland and around 104,000 people worldwide.
Nokia is planning to reduce personnel at a time when multiple reports have suggested that the company is planning to get back into the consumer technology industry by launching an all-new Android-powered smartphone at some stage during this year. While Nokia was once the largest smartphone vendor in the world, the advent of the modern-day smartphone took the Finnish company by complete surprise, and its bet on Windows Phone (eventually Windows Mobile) back in 2011 did not do it any favor either. That being the case, Nokia sold off its devices & services business to Microsoft back in late 2013, and will reportedly be eligible to get back into the game with its self-branded Android smartphones later this year, now that the non-compete clause is reportedly about to expire.