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Nokia is to close its factory in Romania, which will mean 2,200 job cuts. Photograph: Vadim Ghirda/AP
Nokia is to close its factory in Romania, which will mean 2,200 job cuts. Photograph: Vadim Ghirda/AP

Nokia to axe another 3,500 jobs

This article is more than 12 years old
Finnish phone maker will also close Romanian factory as part of its ongoing €1bn cost-cutting plan

Nokia is to axe a further 3,500 jobs on top of the €1bn (£871m) cost-cutting plan announced by the troubled Finnish phone maker in April.

Nokia will cut 1,300 jobs from its location and commerce division, which makes maps for Nokia phones, and close its Cluj factory in Romania, resulting in 2,200 job losses.

The redundancies follow a year of upheaval at Nokia, still the world's biggest phone maker by volume.

In April Nokia said it would cut 4,000 jobs, and transfer 3,000 employees to Accenture, as new chief executive Stephen Elop restructured the company to focus on smartphones.

The new round of cuts bring the total number of job losses at Nokia to 10,500 – about a sixth of the company's worldwide workforce – since April.

"We are seeing solid progress against our strategy, and with these planned changes we will emerge as a more dynamic, nimble and efficient challenger," Elop said in a statement. "We must take painful, yet necessary, steps to align our workforce and operations with our path forward."

Nokia has rapidly lost ground in the smartphone market, falling way behind competition from Apple's iPhone and devices running Google's Android operating system.

The company on Wednesday began shipments of what is expected to be its final smartphone before it launches devices based on Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system.

Nokia will announce details of its first Windows Phone device on 26 and 27 October in London, eight months after Elop pinned the embattled manufacturer's future on Microsoft's smartphone system. The device will use a micro-Sim card which the company hopes will tempt existing iPhone users to swap platforms.

However, Nokia's share price has halved since February on fears that the company will lose an irrecoverable slice of market share before the first Windows Phone handsets are in customers' hands.

"Europe is core to Nokia's future. In addition to our headquarters, we have a strong R&D [research and development] presence in Europe," Elop said. "We have four major R&D sites in Finland and two major R&D sites in Germany, as well as Nokia Research Centres and other supporting R&D sites in Europe.

"Nokia also retains a strong local presence in our many sales offices throughout this region, as well as our operations in Salo and Komarom."

Separately, major Nokia supplier Digia said it was to cut 170 jobs in its Finnish operations, with the possibility of 80 further redundancies. Nokia also said it would review the long-term role of its manufacturing plants in Salo, Finland, in Komarom, Hungary, and Reynosa, Mexico.

The company made a net loss of €368m ($521m; £323m) in the three months to the end of June, compared with a profit of €227m in the same quarter in 2010. Net sales fell by 7% to €9.3bn.

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