The world's leading mobile phone maker Nokia said on April 27 that it would cut 4,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2012 and transfer a further 3,000 employees to consulting firm Accenture.
Nokia said it would outsource to Accenture the activities of its Symbian smartphone platform, including 3,000 employees, by the end of this year.
"In addition, Nokia also plans to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 employees by the end of 2012, with the majority of reductions in Denmark, Finland and the UK," the company said.
The announcement was expected after chief executive Stephen Elop announced in February Nokia would abandon Symbian in favor of a tie-in with a Microsoft Phone platform.
Last week Nokia said it was planning to reduce operating costs by one billion euros (US$1.5 billion) by 2013 compared to its 2010 level through corporate re-structuring and job cuts.
Nokia said that all employees affected by the cuts could remain on the payroll until the end of this year.
"This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia," Elop said.
Current Nokia employees working with Symbian in Finland, China, India, Britain and the United States will be transferred to Accenture, the company said.
Nokia's new strategy to stop developing its own Symbian platform and launch a partnership with Microsoft is a radical effort to stop bleeding out market share to RIM's Blackberry, Apple's iPhone and handsets running Google's Android platform.
The former undisputed world leader saw its market share fall to 29% in the first quarter of this year compared with a peak of 40% in the first half of 2008.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2011
