As readers know, “Diversity of Performance’ has been one of our main themes in the last ten years and we have always used Nokia as the main example. Contrasting their performance in the smartphone market with that of Apple makes a dramatic statement!
Yesterday it was announced that Nokia’s share of the smartphone market had fallen from 42% last year to 26% now. It was nearly 80% in 2006. As a result, Nokia is slashing spending by £880m with 4000 staff, 700 in the UK, losing their jobs. Indeed, close to where we are located here in Farnham, Nokia’s R&D centre in Southwood, Farnborough is to close. This will be quite a blow to the local economy. Given that Nokia employs 'just' 2400 of its 65,000 staff in the UK, losing 700 jobs here is a big hit.
Interestingly Nokia will outsource its Symbian software operations to Accenture; involving the transfer of 3000 staff. One cannot believe that some of these will also become jobless at some point. The future of Symbian looks bleaker by the day as Nokia moves to Microsoft next year.
It would be a brave or foolish analyst who forecast that Nokia’s big bet will pay off.
