Financial difficulties and restructuring
Market share of Symbian, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 among US smartphone owners from Q1 2011 to Q2 2012 according to Nielsen Company.Amid falling sales, Nokia posted a loss of 368 million euros for Q2 2011, while in Q2 2010 had still a profit of 227 million euros. On September 2011, Nokia has announced it will lose another 3,500 jobs worldwide, including the closure of its Cluj factory in Romania.[132]
On 8 February 2012, Nokia Corp. said to cut around 4,000 jobs at smartphone manufacturing plants in Europe by the end of 2012 to move assembly closer to component supplier in Asia. It plans to cut 2,300 of the 4,400 jobs in Hungary, 700 out of 1,000 jobs in Mexico, and 1,000 out of 1,700 factory jobs in Finland.[133]
On 14 June 2012, Nokia announced to cut 10,000 jobs globally by the end of 2013[134] and shut production and research sites in Finland, Germany and Canada in line with continuing losses and the stock price falling to its lowest point since 1996. Today, Nokia's market value is below $10 billion.[135]
In total, according to actualized and planned laid-offs Nokia will have laid off 24,500 employees by the end of 2013. Nokia has already laid off 7,000 employees in the first stage: 4,000 staff and transferred also 3,000 to services firm Accenture. Nokia also closed its factory in Cluj, Romania that decreased the workforce by 2,000 employees, and restructured the Location & Commerce business unit that decreased the workforce by 1,200 employees. In February 2012, Nokia unveiled a plan to cut 4,000 more jobs at its plants in Finland, Hungary and Mexico as it moves smartphone assembly work to Asia. The most recent plan is to cut further 10,000 jobs globally by the end of 2013.[136] Nokia had 66,267 personnel in its Devices&Services, NAVTEQ and Corporate Common Functions units combined, this has been calculated by subtracting the personnel of Nokia Siemens Networks from the total personnel of Nokia Group based on the full year report of 2010.[137] Therefore, the personnel would decrease by approximately 36 percent by the end of 2013 when compared to the end of 2010 that best depicts the lay-offs that have resulted from the strategy change in February 2011 and competition in the central mobile phone business units recently.
On 18 June 2012, Moody’s downgraded Nokia rating to junk.[138] Nokia CEO admitted on 28 June 2012 that company's inability to foresee rapid changes in mobile phone industry was one of the major reasons for the problems company was facing.[139]
On 4 May 2012, a group of Nokia investors filled a class action against the company as a result of disappointing sales of Nokia phones running on the Windows Phone platform.[140] On 22 August 2012, it was reported that a group of Finnish Nokia investors were considering gathering signatures for the removal of Elop as CEO.[141]
In December 2012, Nokia announced that it would be putting its headquarters, Nokia House, up for sale for €170 million.[142] In the same month, Nokia announced its partnership with the world's largest cellular operator, China Mobile, to offer Nokia's new Windows-based phone, the Lumia 920 as Lumia 920T, an exclusive Chinese variant. This was in a bid by Nokia to tap China Mobile's 700 million customer base.[143]
