Nokia (NYSE:NOK) completed its acquisition of Siemens' 50 percent stake in Nokia Siemens Networks, and has renamed the vendor Nokia Solutions and Networks (thereby keeping the "NSN" acronym). However, that may not be the only change in store for the company: Bloomberg reported NSN is considering slashing 8,500 more jobs in a new round of cost-saving efforts.
"While our name and brand have changed, I would like to emphasize that our overall strategy and our focus on mobile broadband remain the same," NSN CEO Rajeev Suri said in a statement announcing that Nokia's $2.26 billion deal with Siemens is now closed. "Our customers will not notice any difference in our unstinting commitment to delivering superior technology and services across the world. Today's announcement is, however, an exciting new chapter in our transformation story."
While NSN is projecting a message that it is business as usual, according to the Bloomberg report, which cited unnamed sources, NSN could cut its workforce down to 42,000 by the end of 2014, which would represent a 17 percent reduction. The cuts would come partly through selling or shutting down plants and outsourcing manufacturing operations. The report said NSN is thinking of selling manufacturing facilities in Finland, India and China, and that talks with contract manufacturers are underway. NSN had 50,500 total employees at the end of the second quarter.
Nokia and NSN declined to comment, according to Bloomberg.
NSN reported a second-quarter operating profit of $10.65 million compared to an operating loss of $301 million during the year-ago quarter, but the vendor recorded a 17 percent year-over-year decline in sales to $3.7 billion.
North America continues to gain importance at NSN, with year-over-year sales growing 16 percent in the region during the second quarter. NSN had declining year-over-year sales in all other world regions: Asia-Pacific and greater China both saw sales declines of 24 percent, while European sales fell by 22 percent.
NSN has restructured itself to focus on mobile broadband. Concurrently, the company has been cutting jobs since 2012. The company has said it will cut up to total of 17,000 jobs by the end of this year, and has been jettisoning non-core units and assets.
For more:
- see this Bloomberg article
- see this Nokia release
- see this NSN release
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