Chip giant Qualcomm has announced a 'strategic realignment plan' which will see it cut around 15 per cent of its workforce in an effort to trim its expenditure by $1.4 billion.
Qualcomm is best known for the Snapdragon, a popular ARM-based system-on-chip part commonly used in mobile phones and tablets. While the company enjoys considerable success thanks to a highly-integrated platform, in which it can act as a one-stop-shop for everything a smartphone needs silicon-wise, it has been suffering from increased competition from the like of Samsung and Nvidia of late. Issues with its latest part, the Snapdragon 810, overheating in certain scenarios didn't help, and now the company is looking to save some cash by reducing its overheads.
According to the company's announcement, which is full of euphemisms like 'right-sizing' rather than 'laying-off', it aims to save $1.4 billion between now and 2016 through 'a series of targeted reductions that will not jeopardise the company's growth objectives or core technology roadmaps,' and to include permanent and temporary worker lay-offs.
By Neowin's reckoning, that equates to around 15 per cent of the company's global workforce - a major exercise by anyone's standards. Other cost-saving measures planned include a review of the company's corporate structure which includes the potential to split the business up into multiple independent entities - a move which could spell the end of Qualcomm's traditional highly-integrated sales patter.
'We are making fundamental changes to position Qualcomm for improved execution, financial and operating performance,' claimed Steve Mollenkopf, Qualcomm chief executive, of the move. 'We are right-sizing our cost structure and focusing our investments around the highest return opportunities while reaffirming our intent to return significant capital to stockholders and refreshing our Board of Directors. Importantly, our Strategic Realignment Plan is designed to drive meaningful change in the near term – without jeopardising our ability to retain and build upon our technology leadership position and create long-term value for our stockholders.'
Qualcomm is best known for the Snapdragon, a popular ARM-based system-on-chip part commonly used in mobile phones and tablets. While the company enjoys considerable success thanks to a highly-integrated platform, in which it can act as a one-stop-shop for everything a smartphone needs silicon-wise, it has been suffering from increased competition from the like of Samsung and Nvidia of late. Issues with its latest part, the Snapdragon 810, overheating in certain scenarios didn't help, and now the company is looking to save some cash by reducing its overheads.
According to the company's announcement, which is full of euphemisms like 'right-sizing' rather than 'laying-off', it aims to save $1.4 billion between now and 2016 through 'a series of targeted reductions that will not jeopardise the company's growth objectives or core technology roadmaps,' and to include permanent and temporary worker lay-offs.
By Neowin's reckoning, that equates to around 15 per cent of the company's global workforce - a major exercise by anyone's standards. Other cost-saving measures planned include a review of the company's corporate structure which includes the potential to split the business up into multiple independent entities - a move which could spell the end of Qualcomm's traditional highly-integrated sales patter.
'We are making fundamental changes to position Qualcomm for improved execution, financial and operating performance,' claimed Steve Mollenkopf, Qualcomm chief executive, of the move. 'We are right-sizing our cost structure and focusing our investments around the highest return opportunities while reaffirming our intent to return significant capital to stockholders and refreshing our Board of Directors. Importantly, our Strategic Realignment Plan is designed to drive meaningful change in the near term – without jeopardising our ability to retain and build upon our technology leadership position and create long-term value for our stockholders.'
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October 14 2021 | 15:04
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