Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia announced this Thursday that it plans to cut 14,000 jobs after a fall in profits in the third quarter.
“In the third quarter, we saw the growing impact of macroeconomic challenges on our business,” company President Pekka Lundmark said in a statement.
Following the results, Nokia’s share price fell 2% to €3.26 at around 0600 GMT (700 Lisbon time).
The group recorded a 69% decline in third-quarter profit to 133 million euros ($140 million) compared with the previous year.
Nokia has announced plans to reduce its current number of employees from 86,000 to 72,000.
The group’s savings program is expected to reduce costs by up to €1.2 billion by 2026 and will target in particular mobile networks as well as cloud and network services.
“The most difficult decisions are those that affect our team,” commented Pekka Lundmark.
The telecoms equipment maker, locked in a battle for 5G networks with Swedish rival Ericsson and China’s Huawei, fell 20% to 4.982 billion euros in the third quarter compared with 2022.
“We have seen a slight slowdown in the pace of 5G deployment in India, meaning growth is no longer sufficient to offset the slowdown in North America,” the official added.
However, Nokia expects “improvement” in its network performance “in the fourth quarter.”