Nokia set plans to cut its workforce by up to 14,000 as it reported a steep drop in third-quarter profit. The telecom equipment maker said it’s looking to...
What's the alternative though, hire as many people as possible and fail?
If you are losing market share and profits then something needs to change, if you can cut costs of that. It's a ridiculously big number and incredibly unfortunate but it's unrealistic to think it'd be anything else
Yes, one quarter of decreased profits. Sales for the same quarter are only down 20%.
Another article says “The company still expects full-year net sales in a range between 23.2 billion euros and 24.6 billion euros, sticking to its forecast.”
I understand that it’s sometimes necessary for companies to trim the fat. But with annual net sales still on track and the company making healthy profits for many quarters running, it sure sucks for those 14,000 people that one bad quarter is being used as the reason that they’ll no longer be able to pay their bills.
It’s what hedges and private equity investors want to see. Trimming the fat is easy financial engineering to make the books look better in the short term since they usually only stick around for 2 to 4 years before divesting.
Remember, this isn't because they're at record losses, or that they're breaking even.
It's literally because they're not making enough profit.
This is the freemarket system functioning as intended.
A company can still be making money, still be above water, but decide their shareholders need to be even better off and they will decide they deserve money more than people struggling and making it by barely check-to-check.
Not quite. Ultimately it's the shareholders making this decision. They twist arms on the board of directors, who in turn twists on the CEO. If the CEO doesn't make a call like this, they simply fire him and find someone who will.
And it's not necessarily that the shareholders want more money. But they sure as hell don't want to lose money. And they are ATM.
NOKIA
-6.44%
NOK
-5.16%
ERIC.B
-0.80%
Hell, I might be one of those shareholders. Maybe there's a spot of Nokia stock in my Roth IRA, hell if I know. But the people managing my IRA know, and they'll drop Nokia if it keeps losing value. And if Nokia keeps losing value, they won't make payroll, those people are getting fired anyway.
If they were a private firm, there wouldn't be any of this horse shit, but then they couldn't raise capital to expand, take on a major initiative, etc. Sucks either way doesn't it?
It's the way the system is designed. That executive had no option but to maximize profits. Otherwise, the stock manager will sell their stock. And, the stock manager has no option but to pick the best stocks. Otherwise, investors would just go with a better performing financial product.
All these "shitty" business decisions made by executives are to increase stock value/dividends because their only goal is to do so. Any products or services a publicly-traded company provides is a side effect. To motivate this further, executives are often heavily paid in stock. Combining all these factors together, society ensures we place the greediest and most ruthless people in charge of our economic decisions.
That's why I never care for news of a particular CEO. If they weren't in that position, another asshole would gladly take their place since that CEO is surrounded by other relentless subordinates that want the position. Basically, our society encourages psychopaths to engage in their deranged egoism. It's also why Trump doesn't trigger me. He's a victim of the system also, because he never faces the consequences he needs to experience in order to develop a healthy, complete, and stable personality. He will always feel deeply insecure, be delusional, and never know mental peace. Unfortunately, we're the ones that have to suffer the consequences of his madness instead.
Nokia is not just a phone company, it is also a telecommunications equipment provider. IIRC both those departments are 2 separate companies. They set up towers, 5G hardware etc and that part of the company is basically B2B.
Last time I wanted to buy a smartphone from Nokia they didn't even have a phone in the higher price segment. I think the highest was 500 Euro and the components were worse or only slightly better than my old phone. If they had better phones, I'd buy them.
I don't think Nokias main business is phones these days but I may be wrong. I was under the impression it was telecommunications. Microwave wireless, networking equipment etc.
HMD Global is a Finnish company, run by ex-Nokia executives. It's pretty nuch the old Nokia, seperated enough to not bankrupt the original company if it goes bad.
The phones are no more Chinese than Google and Apple.