Nokia: Job cuts won't affect APAC

Recent global job cut at Nokia involving 1,800 employees is "not expected" to affect the Asia-Pacific region, says a regional spokesperson who notes that a majority of the cuts will involve personnel from its Symbian smartphone and services business units.

The Finnish company last week announced it will be shedding 1,800 staff globally as part of efforts to revamp its Symbian roadmap.

In an e-mail response to ZDNet Asia, a regional Nokia spokesperson said: "[The company] does not expect the recent job cuts to have an impact on the employee headcount here."

He added that Nokia recently informed employees of its plans to simplify and integrate operations involving product creation on its Symbian mobile platform, services and certain corporate functions. This will result in 1,800 job cuts, mostly in the Symbian and services business units, he said.

Although currently the world's largest phone maker, Nokia has been losing share in the smartphone battle to the Apple iPhone and handsets powered by the Google Android operating system. Symbian runs on Nokia's lower-end smartphone models, while the company plans to tap its Linux-based Meego operating system for tablets and higher-end smartphones.

Since Nokia broke news that former Microsoft executive, Stephen Elop, will be its first non-Finn CEO, the phone maker has seen the departure of several of its top executives.

Mobile solutions head, Anssi Vanjoki, announced his resignation mid-September, while Meego head, Ari Jaaksi, left earlier this month and headed to Hewlett-Packard's Palm division. Nokia's vice president of music services and connected entertainment, Liz Schimel, last week left the company to join U.S. publisher, Meredith's National Media Group, as executive vice president of digital media and consumer relationship management.