Dealing with a continued decline in handset sales, Finland-based Nokia will make additional cuts to its workforce.
Nokia plans to downsize information-technology activities in its corporate development office by cutting 450 employees globally. The reduction in employment is part of Nokia’s plans to cut costs and adjust its business operations based on market demand.
“The announcement makes sense and this isn’t Nokia’s first announcement related to apps and service as they have been going through major restructuring,” said Jeff Orr, senior analyst of mobile content at ABI Research. “This poses a bit of concern, however, in the fact that they had to come back and say we have to go deeper.”
While cutting costs is one way to stay competitive, Nokia is hoping to increase its bottom line by adding a variety of third-party partners, including social networking and image sites, to its image capture and sharing features on its handsets.
“The news is that we have announced our plans to focus the strategy of our services unit to create an even better user experience across our portfolio of consumer services (maps, messaging, music, games, etc), to allow us to accelerate the development of a common platform and therefore increase the opportunities for third parties,” said Laurie Armstrong, a Nokia spokesperson.
Nokia is going to make its mobile games available through the Ovi Store in addition to its existing channels. “This will create a more simplified experience for Nokia’s millions of consumers, while bringing more publishing opportunities for smaller and independent games publishers in the Nokia ecosystem,” Armstrong said.
Tuesday’s announcement was expected, according to Orr. “They were already on this path and had announced several services through Ovi, including branded e-mail accounts, app storefront in several markets, branded maps.”
Nokia has had several rounds of layoffs in the past year….