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STMicroelectronics and Ericsson agreed to close their loss-making mobile chip joint venture ST-Ericsson. The business will be divided with some 1,600 jobs expected to be lost in the process.
The company experienced a major drop in orders from top customer Nokia as the phone maker lost market share to other handset makers, namely Apple and Samsung. Additionally, ST-Ericsson had tough time competing with chip makers from Asia, as well as phone vendors like Samsung which are now making their own chips.
Under the plan, Ericsson will keep around 1,800 employees of ST-Ericsson’s total workforce of 4,450 total. Those jobs will mostly be in Sweden, Germany, India and China. Additionally, the Sweden-based company will also keep a product line of thin 4G “multimode” modem chips, but said it was too early to say when that would break even.
STMicro on its end will keep other existing ST-Ericsson products, along with certain assembly and test facilities. It will take around 950 employees, mostly in France and Italy.
The rest of ST-Ericsson will be shut down, though no factories will be closed…
[Via: Reuters]
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
