gadgets Comment Nokia Cuts 4000 Jobs; Last European Phone Assembly Work Goes To Asia

It’s a sign of the times, though not a particularly surprising one: Nokia has finally eliminated its European phone assembly infrastructure and will be moving those 4000 jobs to Asia, according to a Reuters report. The factories are not being shuttered altogether, and localizing and finishing work will still be done there, but the primary assembly work is being relocated.
The news and layoffs were expected, as the company has slashed many more thousands of jobs over the last year, but this particular cut is symbolic: the intensely European company has been battered into submission, and will join the others in the now-standard configuration of “design here, build there.”
The job losses are 2300 in Hungary, 1000 in Finland, and 700 in Mexico. They don’t represent all of Nokia’s employees in those countries, just those involved with basic assembly. Nokia did not say where or to what contractor the jobs would be sent, but considering their need to cut costs, the majors in China, Taiwan, Thailand, and others in the area are the natural choice.
Naturally, the countries losing the jobs expressed disappointment, but Nokia’s got to do what Nokia’s got to do, and these job losses have been telegraphed for some time. It’s likely that they were announced today only after extensive negotiations with unions and local contractors.
Whether this approach will prove effective at lowering costs without damaging the company or brand is yet to be seen; it may be that saving money on manufacturing might not be enough to counter the enormous drop in sales Nokia has seen over the last two years.

Nokia to unveil a high-end smartphone at MWC

The Mobile World Conference event in Barcelona is officially set to kick off on the 27th of February, 2012. Many handset manufacturers are gearing up to announce their flagship smartphones or show off the latest technology in them. After having done well at the Consumer Electronics Show, held in January, it appears that Nokia is expected to wow the world again by unveiling a high-end handset at this year’s MWC event, reports Forbes.

 Nokia, one of the biggest handset manufacturers has been a noticeable absentee at the last two MWC events and they had stated that they would make a re-appearance at this year’s trade show. The report states, “Nokia will unveil at least one new, high-end handset at the upcoming Mobile World Congress trade show, Forbes has learned from an industry source.” The report goes on to add, “Nokia’s MWC announcements should shed light on its 2012 device strategy. The Finnish device maker has been highly deliberate in the way it rolls out its new Windows Phone handsets. In the year since Nokia said it would use Microsoft‘s mobile operating system for its future smartphones, Nokia has disclosed three Windows Phone handsets.”

There is no word floating around as to what this high-end handset may be, but the report mentions that it could be the Nokia Lumia 910, which is a bumped up version of the recently announced Nokia Lumia 900. This smartphone is said to feature improvements over the Lumia 900, such as having a 12MP camera amongst others. The report also states that Nokia could possibly announce their first tablet.

Reports circulating a Nokia tablet have been doing the rounds, since a long time and back in November, it was reported that this tablet from Nokia would feature a Windows-based operating system. However, the tablet is expected to be launched in June, which is a bit far off, if it is announced at the MWC event later this month.

As of now, this is all hearsay and there is nothing concrete regarding it. Come 27th of February, all things will become clear when Nokia takes the stage at the event.