Ericsson To Slash 600 More Jobs

Ericsson, one of the largest Swedish companies, has reported that the company will be ‘laying-off’ almost 600 employees from its chip manufacturing plant as the losses sustained by the company including its mobile phone division amounted to Euro 1.4 billion.

ST-Ericsson, a joint venture between ST-NXP Wireless and Ericsson, registered a loss of Euro 539 million for 2009, despite the fact that the company became the market leader by supplying 6.5 million chipsets to China.  

Gilles Delfassy, the President and CEO of ST-Ericsson, said that “The mobile platform has now become the convergence point for most consumer electronics, changing consumers' lives and opening up new opportunities even outside the traditional handset market.”  

On the other hand, Sony Ericsson has reported a damp quarter riddled with losses. The company posted a 4th quarter loss of Euro 190 million ($270 million) which was the result of the economic recession and was helped by the fall in its smartphone sales as the company struggled to compete against the likes of Apple and Research in Motion.   

However, the company also reported that due to an effective cost-cutting strategy and the launch of its Aino and Satio smartphones, the company has managed to record an increase in its gross margin.