Moto says 4,000 more must go

Motorola Inc. said it would cut 4,000 more jobs in the coming year, on top of 3,500 job cuts to be completed by next month.
The reduced headcount at the world’s No. 2 handset vendor is part of a $1 billion restructuring the vendor is undertaking to slim down while it attempts to turn around its handset business.
The company said it was on target to complete $400 million in cuts announced in January and would add another $600 million in cost reductions, to be made this year and into next year.
Motorola expects to find the additional $600 million cuts in overhead between the 4,000 job cuts and “prioritization of investments,” continuing discretionary-spending controls, expenses and “site rationalization.” The company did not immediately elaborate on where the job cuts would come, nor whether “site rationalization” meant closing facilities.
Motorola also has not offered a current figure for its workforce. American Technology Research estimated that following its acquisition of Symbol Technologies, Motorola’s ranks swelled to about 71,000 employees by the end of March.
Though American Technology Research analyst Mark McKechnie said that the company has not offered more detail on its revenue and gross margin targets, he is encouraged by new CFO Tom Meredith’s efforts to “right-size” the company in response to its drop in revenue and profit.
McKechnie cautioned that, despite his optimistic take on Motorola’s announcement of the Razr2’s pending launches worldwide and in the United States, material impacts on the company’s financial numbers were unlikely until next year.
Motorola’s CEO Ed Zander and CFO Tom Meredith apparently did not take advantage of their appearance at last week’s Lehman Brothers Worldwide Wireless & Wireline Conference in New York to expound further on the nature of the new cuts or provide further clarity on fundamental business metrics at the company.
Zander told the audience of analysts and media instead that Moto was refocusing on profitable markets and that he saw the European market as a desirable target in which to improve his company’s fortunes-despite widespread recognition that Motorola offers few if any high-end, 3G devices to compete with rivals there. According to Gartner data, Motorola has been losing its footing in Europe, trailing Nokia Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.