Nokia is laying off nearly 1,500 employees in India after it announced a plan to reset its costs. Nokia is repositioning itself to deliver profitable growth and technology leadership including catching up in 5G. The Finnish telecom major is reducing 10,000 employees globally over the next 18-24 months as part of the restructuring plans. On a group level, this is expected to lower its costs by approximately 600 million euros by 2023-end. These savings will offset increased investments in R&D, future capabilities and costs related to salary inflation.
Talking about the impact on its India operations, a Nokia spokesperson said these plans are global and likely to affect most countries. “It is too early to comment in detail, but we expect the consultation processes to start shortly, where applicable. Business groups are looking to reduce site fragmentation, but we have no further details at this point.”
Nokia has over 15,000 people in India, growing from 3,000 in 2007. Nokia’s India presence includes customer operations, manufacturing facilities in Chennai, global delivery centres in Noida and Chennai, and R&D centre in Bengaluru. India is a global hub of innovation in telecommunication services and products for the company.
Nokia’s R&D centre in Bengaluru is one of the four main global R&D sites for the company, employing over 6,000 people undertaking research in various advanced global telecommunication technologies like 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, small cells, and Wi-Fi. Its global delivery centres in Chennai and Noida eploy over 4,000 people who provide support at various stages of the networks across 103 countries.
“We have a clear and detailed plan for how we will reset the business, accelerate competitiveness and scale up our lead in the markets we choose to play in,” said Pekka Lundmark, CEO of Nokia, at its investor day recently.
