Nokia cuts hundreds of jobs; ban on Huawei could be the reason
Telecom equipment maker Nokia has laid off about 2,000 workers in Great China. The Finnish company is trying to reduce costs due to weakness in the telecom equipment market. Nokia also plans to lay off 350 workers in Europe.
A Reuters report quoted a source with knowledge of the matter as saying that the company is cutting jobs to reduce its costs. By the end of last year, Nokia had about 10,400 workers and about 37,400 workers in Greater China and Europe respectively. A company spokesperson confirmed the plan to cut about 350 jobs in Europe. However, the spokesperson refused to comment on the layoffs in Greater China. According to this report, the company cut about 14,000 jobs last year. Nokia spokesperson, Pekka Lundmark, said, “We are not compromising on our R&D to cut costs.”
China was the second largest market for Nokia before Western countries started banning telecom company Huawei a few years ago. After this ban, Nokia’s contracts with Chinese telecom companies decreased. In India, Nokia is in talks with a major telecom company Bharti Airtel for a multi-billion dollar contract. This contract is for providing 5G telecom equipment. Bharti Airtel is expanding its 5G network.
India is the second largest market for smartphones in the world. Telecom companies like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are spending millions of dollars to upgrade their networks. Earlier, the company had given a big contract for telecom equipment to Sweden’s Ericsson. These orders helped companies like Nokia and Ericsson to reduce the impact of the decline in demand from American and Chinese customers last year. Nokia declined to comment on this. Bharti Airtel has not responded to the request sent for comment. Nokia’s deal with the company will be for new AirScale mobile radios. These support upgrading existing networks to 5G.
