Google is not saying directly whether any Australian staff at Motorola Mobility will be retrenched after announcing that further “global cuts” are expected at the struggling smartphone Company.Earlier this week Motorola’s PR Company, Ogilvy & Mather, attempted to shield executives from questions relating to the poor performance of the Company and potential cuts when they launched their new smartphone range in Australia.
Overnight parent Company Google said it plans further job cuts at Motorola while warning of more restructuring to come. Earlier this year the search engine Company slashed 4,000 jobs.
Reuter’s claims the next round of job cuts are estimated to cost the search Company up to $340 million in severance payments.
In Australia, Motorola is struggling to get traction in the Android market up against a surging Samsung, HTC and Apple who between them have over 85% of the smartphone market.
At this week’s launch Motorola executives were questioned as to why they launched their new Razr HD with an old version of Android and not the new Jelly Bean software found on the HTC One and the highly popular Samsung Galaxy S3.
Google who now own 100% of Motorola Mobility also own the Android operating system.
Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside said the cuts were necessary as the company was readjusting its strategy to focus on developing fewer, but high-end handsets. “Motorola has continued to refine its planned restructuring actions and now expects to broaden those actions to include additional geographic regions outside of the U.S.,” reads a statement issued by Google today.
Australia is believed to be one of the countries where cuts will be made with one analyst suggesting that the Motorola Mobility operation may be moved from Melbourne to Sydney where Google’s head office for Australia is located.
Motorola has warned that more job cuts are looming. “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 added somewhat ominously for Motorola staff.
When Google acquired Motorola for over $12 billion, it was a decision driven largely by Motorola’s 17,000 patent arsenal to help defend Android from litigation. While the merits of that decision have been debated, Motorola’s financial position has been progressively getting worse with 14 out of 16 recent quarters resulting in losses. In order to placate its Android partners concerned by Google’s acquisition of Motorola, the company made it clear that Motorola would not receive any special favours.
Marketing staff at Motorola claim they are trying to create a big impact and “shouting loud!” for the new Razr HD which appears to be aimed at the premium end of the market.
And in an attempt to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S3, Motorola has moved to cut deals to take over the homepages of Yahoo and Ninemsn in an effort to create the perception that Motorola is a bigger brand than what it is in Australia.
