“Finland-based Nokia Corp., the world’s largest handset maker by unit shipments, said it plans to move some of its smartphone production closer to component suppliers in Asia, cutting about 4,000 jobs at assembly plants in Hungary, Mexico and Finland in a bid to get products to market more quickly,” Arild Moen reports for MarketWatch.
“In its latest move as it revamps its strategy, Nokia said it plans to cut 2,300 of the 4,400 jobs in Komarom in Hungary, 700 out of 1,000 jobs in Reynosa, Mexico, and 1,000 out of 1,700 factory jobs in Salo, Finland, as part of a long-term review of the plants announced in September,” Moen reports. “The three smartphone factories will instead focus on software development for languages, maps, applications and local operators’ software requirements.”
“Nokia has so far announced plans to shed around 14,000 job cuts since last February’s decision to adopt Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT +0.17% Windows Phone operating system in all its new smartphones and phase out its aging Symbian platform, a move it believes will help it regain market share after struggling to compete with Apple Inc.’s AAPL +0.33% iPhone and smartphones using Google Inc.’s Android software,” Moen reports. “Nokia had 130,000 employees at the end of 2011, including 66,000 at its loss-making Nokia Siemens Networks joint venture with Germany’s Siemens AG.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Apple’s iPhone is a “niche product.” – (Former) Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, April 17, 2008
Related articles:
Beleaguered Nokia’s earnings take 73% dive, Windows Phones fail to dent iPhone dominance – January 26, 2012
Nokia claims today’s youth fed up with iPhone, baffled by Android – December 13, 2011
Beleaguered Nokia axes another 3,500 people; trims manufacturing operations – September 29, 2011
Nokia exec: Apple’s iOS platform is ‘outdated’ – August 10, 2011
Apple officially ousts Nokia as world’s largest smartphone vendor – July 29, 2011
I love walking down memory lane with idiots.
So. Who wants to bet that Nokia doesn’t get pilloried for moving jobs to the east like Apple keeps getting? It’s obvious that Steve Jobs was right… these jobs are gone, and they ain’t a-comin’ back.
Yes, Nokia moves jobs to Asia, yawn; Apple does the same, howling at the moon!
None of those jobs are American jobs, so I don’t see why the American media would care.
But I would certainly hope the Finnish press gives Nokia a measure of grief. Cutting nearly 60% of the manufacturing jobs in their home country…
——RM
Obama: “What would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Why can’t that work come home?”
Steve Jobs: “Those jobs aren’t coming back, [moron (implied)].”
The stunning naivety of the current occupant of the WH is nearly as astounding as it is dangerous.
put down your crack pipe you moron
As a foreigner, I have understood the (at this point rather famous) Obama quote regarding iPhone manufacturing jobs as a provocative question to explain the rest of the audience in presence (as well as the rest of the country / world later) indeed what was wrong with American manufacturing. This was clear to anyone I know (most of them non-Americans).
It is truly disappointing to see otherwise intelligent and sharp Americans allow themselves to get completely blindsided by their political affiliation to twist the meaning of anything a person of the opposing political view says or does.
I have been observing American politics since my early 30s (for over 20 years now), and ever since the American Supreme Court appointed a president (making the election process seem pointless), the American political discourse has ceased to be a dialogue and turned into a shouting match where absolutely nobody listens to the other side at all. They both keep yelling with their ears completely plugged (although, from an external point of view, it is fairly clear that the conservatives tend to twist the truth significantly more often than the progressives, although neither side is immune, so the point is rather mute). As a citizen of the world (and a national of a rather European small country), I am deeply concerned for myself, my fellow countrymen, as well as the whole world, since American power (economic, military and, above all, political, which controls both of those) makes massive tsunami waves and affects us all.
This x1000.
Telling comment on an obviously faked photo showing the Obamas with the wrong hands raised during an anthem: “I don’t care if you say it’s faked, this clearly proves these idiots have don’t give a f*** about America!”
Similar sentiments repeated in many of the comments. Blind, willful ignorance and hatred.
“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” – Michelle Obama, February 18, 2008
You need a new drug as the one you are currently on to control your idiocy is not working any more.
Your infantile response does nothing to refute the rather telling comment from Michelle Obama.
Those who can’t see those chips the size of Everest on the Obamas’ shoulders are permanently blind.
Big party at my house the night of November 6th! It’s sure to start early due to landslide.
Even bigger party scheduled for January 20, 2013!
Obviously it struck close to home. Perhaps you should learn to read. After all the First Ladies adult life included Watergate, The Vietnam War, Iran/Contra, Arms for Hostages and many other things that may tend to color a thinking person opinion. So maybe she was just proud before but was now “really” proud. I guess simple English is above your head.
You harp on the wife of a then-presidential candidate for a poorly-phrased comment, but I’ll bet you give 8 years of ridiculous comments by Bush Jr. when he was actually president a pass.
“When I meet with world leaders, what’s striking — whether it’s in Europe or here in Asia…” – B. Obama, mistakenly referring to Hawaii as Asia while holding a press conference outside Honolulu, Nov. 16, 2011
“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad.” – B. Obama, Cincinnati, OH, Sept. 22, 2011
“The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.” – B. Obama, Tampa, Fla., Jan. 28, 2010
If you want more, just ask, I’ve got a million of ’em.
Thanks for proving my point.
Actually F2T2, if you have a million of ’em yeah please post them, because the B. Obama gaffes you’ve quoted so far are pretty damn tame. Don’t hold back, give us his absolute worst ones.
It was a simple request to F2010T2012: provide Obama’s absolute worst quote gaffes. Almost 12 house later, nothing, even though he’s posted in another MDN article. Even though F2010T2012 claims he had a million to choose from.
BLUFF CALLED!
Go ahead, you will feel better…. Just say it..” I am a racist and will NEVER accept a Black president …. Isn’t that better than trying to find intelligent reasons to fault Obama…. You were not fooling anyone with the political rhetoric any way… And really doesn’t it feel better to just yell it out…. “the truth, you don’t want the truth … I hate black people ….”
exactly…cosign!
When I would catch myself thinking along these lines over the last couple of years I used to immediately correct myself that no modern American has those attitudes anymore. Maybe it’s an artifact of growing up on the West Coast where prejudice of any kind has been historically less prevalent. Lately I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just wishful thinking on my part. There’s no other explanation for the levels of unreasonable and unreasoning hatred for someone who has been at least as good a President as Gerald Ford or Bush #1.
Applause! Well said Predrag.
You can actually go back a bit further than 2000 if you want to see the rancour. The modern day problem began with Nixon and the Watergate hearings.
It continued with the sniping at Carter and then the stonewalling of Reagan.
Since 1980 the party out of executive power has been obstructionist in congress.
*claps*
Indeed, the present inclination towards exchanging ad hominem attacks over polital affiliation is mystifying to most outside America, who cherish the idea that America prospered by being the best, intelligent and progressive balance of state and individual needs.
Watching the Coen bros. ‘No Country for Old Men’ almost breaks my heart.
With all due respect conservatives don’t have a lock on twisting the truth. Liberals are pretty darn good and equally talented at that themselves. Also Liberals and Democrats like to snootily and disingenuously place themselves noisily on sky high moral & intellectual ground so much that to me they prove the opposite. As a Centrist I am pretty appalled by both parties who seem to be village idiots incapable of compromise and working together. All or nothing for both sides gets us stalemate.
What’s worse is the “center” keeps shifting to the right, to the point where even “moderate” (i.e. centrist) and “progressive” is used as an epithet by the right.
Ronald Reagan would be considered a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by today’s Republicans.
Thank you for writing thi!!. Before I’d even finished reading I began to cringe, knowing we’d prove your point immediately. And so we did.
I agree that it began with Nixon — and also that we pegged the needle at redline after the 2004 election and have never looked back. What scares me is how both reflexive and contagious it is, like a sociopolitical disease with no cure. We’re in real trouble and most have absolutely no capacity to see it, let alone take any responsibility for their part.
[Cue the bile in two… one…]
@Predrag – the media is obsessed with sound bites, as well as visual bites. An excellent example on the other side is the “Mission Accomplished” banner on a US Navy ship (hung to celebrate the ship’s accomplishment, not the country’s nor the President’s) which the liberal media (sorry about the redundancy there) spun to a blast at President Bush. Sensible people either check the facts (ALL the facts) themselves, or at least listen to commentators who lay out the entire situation rather than picking and choosing. I will say here, as a conservative, that I have found NO commentators who do not at least sometimes “pick and choose” rather than deal with the entire situation.
Unfortunately, you betray your bias by falsely claiming that the Supreme Court “appointed” a president, rather than simply deciding a point of law on which a particular state’s votes happened to turn. As it happens, out of the three ways that were being advocated to decide that particular problem, a post-mortem analysis by Gannet News Service showed that both of the ways the Democrats wanted the problem solved would have resulted in Bush carrying the state; the way the Republicans wanted it would have resulted in Gore carrying the state.
And yes, the American political discourse has ceased to be a dialogue, in large part because there is no longer a dependable unbiased voice (such as Walter Cronkite) reporting the facts, and only the facts. Until his retirement from broadcasting, no one could have guessed by his reporting what his personal views were. That high standard has long since been abandoned by the media in this country, and it is obvious to anyone with at least a quarter of a brain that the media in the USA has an overwhelming liberal bias.
Therefore, I suggest that your perception that the conservatives tend to “twist the truth” more often than the “progressives” is highly influenced by a steady diet of liberal media. However, I believe that your concern is well-founded; a free press is one of the bulwarks of freedom, but freedom of the press at base rests upon the press reporting the truth in as unbiased a manner as possible. A “free press” with an agenda, be it liberal or conservative, is no longer “press” but a political entity which deserves no special protection whatsoever. And the end result of this line of reasoning would, indeed, affect us all.
(And, BTW: points are not “mute,” but “moot.” I don’t know if English is your first language, and this is not meant as a derogatory criticism, but rather a correction in good spirits. While I disagree with many of your premises, it’s nice to see people who discuss rather than rant.)
“An excellent example on the other side is the “Mission Accomplished” banner on a US Navy ship (hung to celebrate the ship’s accomplishment, not the country’s nor the President’s) which the liberal media (sorry about the redundancy there) spun to a blast at President Bush. ”
Really? Really….
How many Presidents fly out to a ship being held just over the horizon to give a speech and coincidentally have a “mission accomplished” banner displayed in just the right location to be a backdrop on a live television transmission.
Really? You are so naive to believe that “story” you just barfed up? Really?
And back on the subject, It is amazing that Nokia has been able to sustain such massive workforce of 130,000 with such slim profit margins.
As long as all the job cuts are in manufacturing, they may stand some chance. For a struggling technology company, the only way to revive it is to revitalise R&D and innovation. Cutting jobs in that segment would cause a fairly short-lived balance sheet (and consequently, stock) boost. If expensive manufacturing is eliminated and outsourced to the efficient experts in China, Nokia just may stand a chance, which is in fact good for Apple.
At this point, anything that will take market share away from Android helps Apple solidify its position as the most coveted brand.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
Proverbs 16:18, King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
Pride before fall, a classic silent comedy premise. Appropoe for Democrats. And Republicans too. I wish voters would realize they don’t have to vote for either party. Nothing would send shockwaves more to Washington DC than having someone of neither party elected.
@ Teabagger 2010-2012
“Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
From the Treaty of Tripoli
Submitted to the Senate By John Adams for President George Washington and Unanimously approved by the US Senate- all “founding fathers”.
Gawd doesn’t care and neither do educated, non-superstitous people.
For some reason, the Treaty of Tripoli keeps on being cited, as though it had not been superseded by the Charter of the United Nations (which is also a treaty) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since that time, religious persecution by any state against any person is no longer simply an “internal matter,” but the concern of all. And any religion that arrogates to itself the right to impose involuntary physical punishments (beyond ostracism or “excommunication”) instead of or in addition to spiritual ones, operates as a government, not a religion, and should not be able to claim protection under the First Amendment.
Although not really relevant in response to “First 2010, Then 2012”, the Treaty of Tripoli must be cited whenever fundamentalist revisionists claim the USA was founded as a Christian nation, because this treaty, signed by the founding fathers in the country’s infancy, very clearly shows the revisionists to be liars.
The founding fathers were not Christian, they were deists in the age of reason and enlightenment (basically: based on available evidence, a god probably created the universe and set things in motion, but does not actively intervene in human affairs). In some of their writings they actually refer to Christianity as a superstition.
“Gawd doesn’t care and neither do educated, non-superstitous people.”
So everyone who believes in God is uneducated and superstitious. You can’t even type the real name of God. So much for superstition. As for education, wanna compare GRE scores?
“What about those jobs that “aren’t coming back”? We’re not talking about simple assembly that costs a bundle per unit in America and mere cents in China. In the mid-’90s, at the Apple plant in Elk Grove, California, the cost of building a computer was $22 a machine, compared with as little as $5 at a factory in Taiwan. This is not a dominant factor when the machine sells for $1,500 and you have costs like transport to figure in. Furthermore, stricken America is actually becoming a low-wage magnet.”
From “Sure, Apple Could Build the iPhone Here” The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/print/article/165979/sure-apple-could-build-iphone-here
I wonder when Nokia HQ will move to Redmond.
Copy the product – then copy the method.
How many jobs are in Asia because of Apple? It’s a shift. Apple is just as guilty as Nokia. It’s not a job loss. It’s a shift of jobs.
Make no mistake; out of the (starting) retail price of $650 for each iPhone, only about $10 is paid to the Chinese manufacturer for the manufacturing labour costs. Most of the rest of that revenue ends up in the American economy, fueling American jobs.
There was an article, quoted here by MDN few days ago, that explained how Apple generates (directly and indirectly) some 350,000 jobs in America.
One interesting thing to note. If we look at smartphone makers that have failed, or are clearly failing, there are at least three that are very prominent: Palm, RIM and Nokia. What do they have in common? The answer is: hubris.
Roger McNamee (Palm investor): “You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.”
Ed Colligan (CEO of Palm): …”We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”
MDN already quoted Nokia; I can’t seem to find the Balsillie’s dismissive statement on iPhone, but he said something derisive back in ’07.
The arrogance of those guys matches the dire fortunes in which their companies had found themselves.
And no matter the extent of their hubris and arrogance, those so called leaders all came out with boat loads more money than the poor shlep who is being laid-off because of their failure to lead. Talk about justice, it does not exist!
Another very interesting (and in my mind related) point. Is Apple capable of such hubris, and one day such a reversal? No doubt the quality and ingenuity of these products warrants hubris on a level never achieved before, at least in our opinion — but is that enough to save Apple from the famous biblical warning about pride?
It comforts me that Cook is very much a soft spoken, up-at-dawn, head-down kind of worker. May we stay hungry, humble, and fearless forever!
I am truly dismayed about the continuing decline in the quality of published articles.
Shed job cuts?
Loss-making?