Motorola’s previously disclosed layoffs in its handset division may arrive this week, mobile phone blog PhoneScoop.com reported today. Company officials declined to comment.
Co-CEO Sanjay Jha said last fall that around 3,000 jobs will be cut, 2,000 coming from the company’s handset division.
Jha last fall also said Motorola will reduce the number of phones and operating systems in its catalog, will re-focus on Google’s Android system but would not immediately sell the division after previous efforts to find a suitable buyer failed.
The division lost $840 million in the third quarter while unit sales dropped 32% year-over-year to 25.4 million. Motorola’s global market share in mobile phones fell sharply to 8.4% worldwide.
A date for the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report is not yet announced, but is expected later this month
Sony is also experiencing layoffs. By spring 2010, the Japanese company will trim 5% of its 160,000 worldwide staff, officials said last month. Its mobile phone venture, Sony Ericsson, was affected in September.