Google’s Motorola Mobility Hardware unit is planning to lay off around 1,200 workers according to The Wall Street Journal.
The staff was informed in an email this week that “while we’re very optimistic about the new products in our pipeline, we still face challenges.” The company email added that “our costs are too high, we’re operating in markets where we’re not competitive and we’re losing money.” The layoffs will affect workers in the U.S., China and India. A third of the job cuts would be in the U.S.
A Motorola spokesman said: “These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer. It’s obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition.”
The job cuts began last August with Google saying it would lay off 4,000 employees. Google CFO Patrick Pichette recently said that Motorola’s upcoming products are “not really to the standards that what Google would say is wow — innovative, transformative.”
After purchasing Motorola in 2011 for $12.5 billion as a potential competitor for Samsung and Apple, the division has continually lost money for Google. In the third quarter of 2012 it posted an operating loss of more than $500 million and a loss of more than $350 million in the fourth quarter. Google hopes that the patents held by Motorola would fend off legal attacks on its Android mobile platform and help it to expand beyond the software business.
Motorola Mobility, which has 94 offices throughout the world, will center research and development in Chicago, Sunnyvale, California and Beijing. At the end of 2012, it had 11,113 employees.
