Samsung recently warned employees at its South Korea headquarters that the company will face stiff competition amid a weak economy this year. “The global economy’s low-growth trend will continue and uncertainty surrounding the business environment won’t be easily removed,” Samsung Chairman Lee Kun Hee told his employees according to Bloomerg. The company had a solid 2011, when it sold more than 300 million cell phones for the first time ever. Analysts are also worried about the situation; Park Hyun, a...

Sony reported its fiscal first quarter results on Thursday and recorded a net loss of 15.5 billion Yen ($198.7 million). The company attributed the loss to the earthquake that struck off the coast of Japan in March, as well as a “stagnate” economy in the United States and Europe. Sony’s operating profits were 27.5 billion Yen ($330 million), down from the 67.02 billion Yen ($862) it reported during the same quarter last year. Operating revenue was 1.49 trillion Yen ($19.1 billion), down 10% ...

Qualcomm said it expects to ship between 120 million and 125 million chips during the quarter ending in September, a figure that is lower than the 130 million units MLM Partners LLC analyst Tero Kuittinen expected the company to move. The lower projection hit Qualcomm in late trading on Tuesday when its stock price fell 3.8%. Qualcomm blamed the lower than expected forecast on a weak European economy and said that consumers there aren’t buying new phones as quickly. “Chip units for autumn are ligh...

As Finnish cell phone giant Nokia continues to cut costs in an effort to combat declining demand, the company recently told Reuters it would shed an additional 490 jobs in the near future. 170 employees from Nokia’s logistics, production management and production support divisions will be released and the company will extend its Voluntary Resignation Package to 320 workers at its Salo facility. Nokia had already implemented a temporary layoff schedule at its plant in Salo, but apparently the measure was...

The Rockefeller Institute, a research group tied to SUNY, said that sales taxes took a 6.1 percent dive in Q4 of 2008 and Q1 of this year was even worse. Given the current state of the economy of course, this is hardly a surprise. Beyond the obvious reasoning behind the decline — people are losing jobs, making less money and spending less money — the drop may be bad news on another front as it could finally spell the end for the free rides afforded by online shopping. The idea of requiring online ...

Sony Ericsson announced today that Najmi Jarwala has resigned from his position as President of Sony Ericsson USA and Head of Region North America (US and Canada). Mr. Jarwala will be leaving his position at the end of March in order to “pursue other career opportunities”. While SE seeks out a replacement, the dual role will be filled by Anders Runevad, currently the Executive Vice President of Sony Ericsson and Head of Global Sales & Marketing. With Sony Ericsson seemingly sinking faster than...

The heat is on and Nokia appears to be feeling the burn as much as the next company as it has just announced a new round of cost-cutting measures that will go into effect next week. The Finnish handset manufacturer turned Internet Company revealed today that it will be introducing a new Voluntary Resignation Package that invites employees to voluntarily and amicably part ways with the company. This of course is in addition to the recent news of massive temporary layoffs at its production plant in Salo. A soun...

As MWC draws closer mobile fans around the world wait in anticipation as mobile companies prepare some of their biggest announcements of the year. Leading up to MWC, news coming from manufacturers is historically positive – a taste of things to come in Barcelona. In this economic climate however, mobile companies find themselves unable to wait until this sacred time has passed and we are still seeing bad news come down from every corner of the industry. Today’s news comes from our friends in Finla...

Despite solid Q4 2008 earnings, Verizon Wireless is apparently not layoff-proof in this struggling economy but then no company is. Rumor has it that Verizon is in the process of an unannounced work force reduction that began yesterday, February 9th. The rumored layoffs will continue through the end of the month and will affect an unknown number of employees from management level down. As always is the case, low performing employees and those facing disciplinary action are at the highest risk of losing their j...

First things first: 1.9 million activations is nothing to scoff at. It’s a huge number, and represents AT&T and Apple’s unquestionable success in the smartphone arena. Including the 4th Quarter results, the company can claim 4.3 million total iPhone activations since the introduction of the iPhone 3G, an impressive number by anyone’s standards and a certain earmark of Apple and AT&T’s continuing dominance in the consumer market. The company also revealed, somewhat cryptically, ...

…and over 35,000 folks prepare to start searching for a new job. So sad. This latest bit of bad news comes after Circuit City’s lengthy, and apparently fruitless, search for a buyer. The company has been trying to sell its assets for quite some time now. It seems, however, that faced with a ticking clock and an utter lack of interest from outside parties Circuit City has made an agreement with a liquidation firm to get rid of all of its material assets and close shop. The company filed for bankrup...

Things aren’t looking too hot for Sony CEO Howard Stringer. Back in October his company predicted that it would end its current fiscal year with an operating profit of $2.2-billion but a Japanese newspaper is reporting Sony is well on track for a loss of at least $1.1 billion. So what happened to Sony? For starters the Japanese economy, the second largest in the world, was one of hardest hit victims of the credit crunch. Japan’s largest stock market index, the Nikkei 225, ended 2008 down 50% from ...

It looks like Sprint’s Voluntary Separation Probgram (VSP) we scooped last month didn’t quite have the impact the company had hoped for. Surprising that employees didn’t jump at the opportunity to leave their jobs as the unemployment rate in this country continues to skyrocket. The deadline for Sprint employees to express interest in the VSP was this past Wednesday and just six days later, Sprint CFO Bob Brust began speaking publicly of impending company-wide job cuts at the UBS annual media...

In a bit of somber Monday morning news, it appears as if Yahoo is going to proceed with its planned end of the year layoffs which are expected to occur on Wednesday. Originally announced by Jerry Yang on October 21st during Yahoo’s last earnings call, the layoffs have been overshadowed by the news of the dethroning of Jerry Yang and the constant and sometimes false rumors of a Yahoo-Microsoft deal. Pushed aside but not forgotten, a new report provides additional details about the impending Yahoo layoff...