Nokia has experienced a lot of negative news over the past few months. The stock has been in a free-fall, showing no sign of leveling off, and they announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs world-wide. Combine that with the neutering of the highly regarded Lumia 900 and you have a company that can’t seem to buy a break.
Unfortunately, according to NASDAQ.com, there’s more bad news on the horizon: Nokia plans on shutting down two regional sales offices in China, the largest smartphone market in the world. The silver lining is that not everyone will be sent packing when the offices close. Some of the positions will be merged into the two remaining offices in China, one in Beijing and the other in Guangzhou; there is no word on how many people will be laid off as a result of this operation.
Sales of Nokia smartphones have been plummeting in China over the past year. In the second quarter of 2011, nearly one-third of phones had the Nokia logo on them. Now, less than a year later, that number is down to a meager 11% while competitor ZTE Corp’s market share increased from 3.6% up to 10.6%.
Nokia needs to find a way to remain competitive in order to right the ship before it sinks. It appears that they’re placing most of their eggs in the Windows Phone 8 basket; time will tell if this is the right approach.
Source: NASDAQ