Nokia takes steps to accelerate company transformation and increase effectiveness

Symbian Smartphones and Services streamlined for greater simplicity for consumers and developers.

Espoo, Finland - Nokia has communicated to its employees the company's plans to accelerate its transformation and increase effectiveness. The plans include simplifying operations in product creation in Nokia's Symbian Smartphones organization, as well as Nokia's Services organization and certain corporate functions. The plans are expected to result in a reduction of up to 1800 employees globally.

In Symbian Smartphones, Nokia plans to renew product creation to increase responsiveness to consumer demands and reduce time to market. This includes expanding the use of common tools for application development, streamlining software development, simplifying and consolidating operations and placing greater focus on adding value to consumers. The changes target increased competitiveness and support building an attractive and sustainable platform for application developers.

Nokia is also making changes in its Services organization. Instead of distinct end-to-end service lines, the Services organization will be focused on delivering an integrated Ovi experience across our full range of devices. In addition to simplifying its ways of working, the aim is to provide more compelling Ovi services to consumers.

In line with these changes, Nokia is also streamlining certain corporate functions and corporate research activities.

"Changes impacting personnel are always difficult. We are committed to managing these changes in a way that reflect Nokia's values, and will support affected employees with alternative solutions, such as helping them find new positions within the company," says Juha Äkräs, Executive Vice President, Human Resources. "The announcement today is the result of careful evaluation and planning; the plans have now been reviewed and endorsed by the new management. The aim is to accelerate the company's transformation towards a leading mobile solutions provider, and to do this we are simplifying and integrating operations within our product creation and corporate functions."

Altogether, the planned changes are expected to result in a reduction of up to 1 800 employees globally, as activities are planned to be discontinued and integrated. Nokia will begin applicable consultations with employee representatives about these plans.