By Chris Chang, posted Jul 18, 2012 at 6:53 AM, 807 views,

Nokia Shuts Down Operations in China Due to Sluggish Sales

Once a major player in China’s mobile market, Nokia is now facing layoffs and office closures in China, due to a large drop in its market share in the country and elsewhere around the world. The Wall Street Journal reports that Nokia is closing two regional sales offices in China, and laying off up to 10,000 staff globally. So does anyone care?

Just in case you’re not familiar with Nokia’s operations in China, the Finnish company actually has four distribution centers in China — Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The situation is now bad, where the company will be closing two regional sales offices in Chengdu and Shanghai. Size of its operations in Beijing and Guangzhou will be increased, and according to Gao Xiang, a spokesperson for Nokia China, the company will also cut staff in China after halving its regional sales and distribution offices in the country from four to two.

However, Nokia didn’t specify how many people it will lay off because of the closures, but Nokia China’s spokesman said the management team will be changed around.

As Nokia is shuffling its operations in China, the company actually need to take another look on the Chinese smartphone market today. There’s actually a massive amount of Chinese consumers looking to upgrade to smartphones, and Chinese mobile users have increasingly opted for models sold by Apple and Samsung at the high end, or one of the growing number of cheap smartphones offered by Chinese vendors such as Huawei, ZTE, Coolpad, and Lenovo. You may not know, in the first quarter this year, Nokia had an 11% share of China’s smartphone market, down sharply from the 30.4% share it had in the second quarter of 2011, according to data from Analysys International.

So, what could Nokia do to make a comeback? Well, here’s what Nokia China’s spokesman said,

“We will focus on our core strategy – strengthening the capability of introducing smartphones based on Windows Phone operating system,”

Seriously, Windows Phone? Looks like Nokia will struggle to survive as it competes with iPhone and Android phones in the world’s largest smartphone market — China.

Source: Xinhuanet via Wall Street Journal