Google announces possible layoffs at its Motorola Mobility unit

Google announced on Thursday that it will be downsizing at its newly acquired Motorola Mobility from third quarter through fourth. The steps are taken in the light of increasing additional costs to the company.

In a regulatory filing Thursday, Google said it continues “to refine its planned restructuring actions and now expects to broaden those actions to include additional geographic regions outside the U.S.”

The company did not provide an exact figure of how many jobs will be cut lose but in the light of the August announcement it could be in tune of 30 to 40 thousand. The company in August said that it plans to cut 40,000 jobs because of piling up costs.

Google acquired Motorola Mobility from Motorola, Inc., finalizing the $12.5 Billion deal in May this year. It is one of the largest smartphone makers in the world, making handsets running on Android operating system. It employed 20,500 personnel in 2011.

Google said that it has raised the estimates on the severance costs to $300 Million, which previously was $275 Million. Furthermore, the company also expects restructuring costs to strike at $90 Million, including $40 million applied to the third quarter.

“Motorola continues to evaluate its plans and further restructuring actions may occur, which may cause Google to incur additional restructuring charges, some of which may be significant,” the company said in the filing.

Motorola Mobility, in collaboration with Google, recently launched its new line of smartphones in the US. The new Droid Razr HD and Droid Razr Maxx HD are the button-less, edge-to-edge screen smartphones from the company that are dramatically thin and light. Razr Maxx HD provides a marathon for battery life with up to 11 hours of continuous video playback. It runs on Android Jelly Bean, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system.

The new line is expected to boost profitability at Motorola upon its release near the holiday season.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=33740

Posted by Usman Khalid on Oct 6 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.