Nokia Oyj will transfer its Symbian software development to Accenture Plc as part of Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop’s plan to eliminate 7,000 jobs worldwide and switch to Microsoft Corp.’s system.
Accenture, the second-biggest technology-consulting company, will take on 3,000 Nokia workers in China, Finland, India, the U.K. and the U.S. by the end of this year, the companies said in a statement today. Accenture will also work for Nokia on projects based on Windows Phone 7, the Microsoft platform that the Finnish company will adopt.
Espoo-based Nokia will in addition eliminate about 4,000 positions, mostly in Denmark, Finland and the U.K., by the end of 2012 and consolidate research and product development sites. Elop, 47, is seeking to restore Nokia’s smartphone prospects after deciding that its own Symbian and MeeGo systems couldn’t keep up with Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android, the fastest-growing platform for phones that can be used to surf the Web and view movies.
“The big surprise is Accenture,” Ben Wood, a London-based analyst at CCS Insight, said in a phone interview. “Nokia is moving quickly to transition Symbian out of the company in order to ensure complete focus on Windows Phone 7. This is the beginning of the long and painful journey.”
Shares Rise
Nokia rose as much as 4 percent and was up 3.4 percent to 6.16 euros at 11:57 a.m. in Helsinki, giving the company a market value of 23.1 billion euros ($34 billion). It has fallen 25 percent since the Feb. 11 alliance with Microsoft.
The stock has lost about two thirds of its value since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, raising consumer expectations for smartphones to be simple to operate and integrated with Internet services. Nokia’s smartphone market share fell to 30.8 percent at the end of last year, 20 percentage points lower than the level at the iPhone’s introduction, according to researcher Gartner Inc.
First-quarter net income declined 1.4 percent to 344 million euros, Nokia said last week. Handset revenue rose 6.4 percent to 7.09 billion euros, surpassed for the first time by iPhone sales of $12.3 billion in the period.
CEO Elop said last week that he plans to slash 1 billion euros in expenses at the handset business by 2013.
“We have new clarity around our path forward,” Elop said in the statement. “We are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia.”
Nokia added about 5,000 employees in the last year, including about 1,000 at the Navteq maps division and about 2,000 at Nokia Siemens Networks, its venture with Siemens AG. Nokia reported an employee count of 130,951 people as of March 31, 2010.
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