It looks like if your company name is not Apple of Samsung and you’re in the mobile phone industry you’re most likely have some financial problems.
Sony, which most recently bought Ericsson’s half of its previous partnership to go it alone in the mobile phone industry, has announced that its new Sony Mobile Communications will be letting go of 15 percent of its employees. The removal of approximately 1,000 people is part of a larger restructuring plan for the company. Apart from the layoffs, the company will also be moving its headquarters and other company functions from its original Lund, Sweden base to Tokyo, Japan by October this year.
The layoff program is expected to end by March of 2014, with 650 employees in Lund taking most of the hit. The reasons for the layoff are to increase efficiency in corporate operations, reduce costs and ultimately to increase profit growth. The Lund offices will not be completely shut down. According to Sony officials, it will still be considered a strategic location for Sony Mobile and its functions will be refocused towards software and application development.
Sony has been paying a lot of attention to its new solo venture into smartphones. Aside from buying out Ericsson, it has also announced that it will not be making any kind of feature phones and will instead only concentrate on manufacturing smartphones.
Originally posted on August 27, 2012 @ 8:19 pm