Sony Mobile Communications To Cut 1,000 Jobs
Sony Corp.’s SNE -1.34% mobile-phone business is planning to cut about 15% of its global work force, or 1,000 jobs, by the end of March 2014 as it seeks to cut costs and return to profitability.
In a statement Thursday, Sony Mobile Communications said that it would move its corporate headquarters to Tokyo from Lund, Sweden, effective in October, and will change the global structure of its development sites in Japan, Sweden and China.
Sony Mobile Communications was previously a mobile phone manufacturing joint venture between Sony Corp. and Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson of Sweden that was dissolved earlier this year after it racked up steep losses and didn’t come up with compelling smartphones to compete with Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in the fast-growing smartphone market. Sony of Japan took full control of the joint venture in February this year after buying back Ericsson’s 50% stake in the joint venture.
“We are accelerating the integration and convergence with the wider Sony group to continue enhancing our offerings, and a more focused and efficient operational structure will help to reduce Sony Mobile’s costs, enhance time to market efficiency and bring the business back to a place of strength,” Kunimasa Suzuki, president and CEO of Sony Mobile, said in the statement.
As part of the cuts, Sony Mobile said it has filed a “redundancy notification” with the Swedish authorities that the company expects to cut 650 jobs in the Lund office. Lund will still be a site for the company to focus on software and application development, it said.
News of the job cuts comes as Sony continues to struggle to gain competitiveness in the consumer electronics industry. The company has been mired in losses as its TV business has been losing ground to competitors such as Samsung Electronics, and as it also copes with the impact of the strong yen. For its first quarter ended June 30, Sony posted a net loss of 24.64 billion yen, widening from a net loss of 15.50 billion yen a year earlier.
Marketwatch
