AT&T and Nokia each announced severe belt-tightening measures this week, but each laid out different approaches to address market share issues.
Suffering from the loss of landline subscribers, AT&T announced Thursday that it will cut its employment base by 4%, or 12,000 employees. The company, however, said it plans to increase staff in broadband, wireless, and video. AT&T has been riding its exclusive deal with Apple's iPhone, and the telecom company expects to gain market share in the mobile phone category next year.
At its annual Capital Markets Day, this year in Brooklyn, N.Y., Nokia again cut its estimates for handset deliveries and indicated that it, too, will make staffing cuts. Nokia is also lining up for increased market penetration in the United States. The Finnish company has a single-digit market share in the United States, versus its nearly 40% global share.
According to a report from Avian Securities, Nokia is said to be preparing to launch its highly anticipated E71 touch-screen smartphone in the United States next year through AT&T. Verizon is likely to get the 2605 clam-shell mobile phone.
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's chief executive, recently said the company plans to make a renewed effort to crack the U.S. market. Comments this week by AT&T executives that they could move to Nokia's Symbian operating system indicate that a closer Nokia-AT&T alliance could be in the works.
As for belt-tightening, Nokia's CFO Rick Simonson said at the Brooklyn investment meeting that there is great urgency to cut costs at Nokia due to the deteriorating global economic situation and there will soon be some announcements that address that situation.
Nokia surprised attendees at the gathering with the comment that it will be the world's largest manufacturer of touch-screen devices in a year.
resource: http://techweb.com
