Alcatel-Lucent SA plans to reduce staff by 10,000 as chief executive officer Michel Combes moves forward with cost cuts to turn around the unprofitable French network-equipment maker.
The cuts represent about 14 percent of Alcatel-Lucent’s workforce worldwide, based on the 72,000 employees the Paris-based company had as of December last year. About 4,100 jobs will be cut in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 3,800 in Asia and 2,100 in the Americas, the company said yesterday in a statement.
Alcatel-Lucent is accelerating a turnaround bid after thousands of earlier job cuts, restructuring and asset sales failed to stem losses. Pressure on equipment prices and slower investment from European carriers, along with competition from China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), are forcing Alcatel-Lucent and rivals such as Nokia Oyj’s network-gear unit to reduce staff.
A slimmer organization could make Alcatel-Lucent a more attractive target for an acquirer. Nokia, set to become a manufacturer focusing on wireless networks after the sale of its handset business, is evaluating a linkup with Alcatel-Lucent, people with knowledge of the matter said last month.
Alcatel-Lucent is following in the footsteps of Nokia’s network unit, NSN, which in late 2011 started a savings program to cut 17,000 positions, or about 23 percent of its total. The Finnish company has since cut more positions, in excess of 20,000 during the past two years. Cisco Systems Inc, the world’s biggest maker of networking equipment, said in August it was cutting about 5 percent of its work force.
Nokia is considering options, including a combination with Alcatel-Lucent’s wireless-gear unit, one of the people said last month.
Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent together would be a stronger challenger to Ericsson AB, the biggest maker of mobile-phone networks, and Huawei. Alcatel-Lucent has contracts with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc in the US, a market where Nokia trails competition. No talks are under way, they said.
About a third of Alcatel-Lucent’s employees are in Europe and a third in the Asia-Pacific region. A quarter are in the US, where Alcatel-Lucent runs Nobel-prize winning research facility Bell Labs.
In France, Alcatel-Lucent plans 900 job cuts. Combes faces a tough stance from French President Francois Hollande, a Socialist elected last year after pledging to block “a parade of firings.” Alcatel-Lucent will discuss the cuts with union representatives today, a legal obligation in France for job cuts.
Based on last year’s reported revenue, the company had sales per employee of US$257,000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. NSN had US$313,500 and Ericsson US$305,000.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed gratitude to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) for its plan to invest approximately 250 million euros (US$278 million) in a joint venture in France focused on the semiconductor and space industries. On his official X account on Tuesday, Macron thanked Hon Hai, also known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), for its investment projects announced at Choose France, a flagship economic summit held on Monday to attract foreign investment. In the post, Macron included a GIF displaying the national flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as he did for other foreign investors, including China-based
RSS