Microsoft strips thousands of jobs from its Windows Phone division

In May, Microsoft announced 1,850 layoffs – largely to its ailing smartphone division. Now the tech giant has revealed plans to cut a further 2,850 jobs, with the bulk of these again coming from the smartphone unit it acquired from Nokia in 2013.

As Recode points out, the cuts mean that Microsoft has “essentially shed nearly all of the Nokia mobile phone business that it acquired back in April 2014 for $7.2 billion”.

The cuts come according to the company’s quarterly 10-K report, which also signals losses in Microsoft’s global sales force. “In addition to the elimination of 1,850 positions that were announced in May 2016, approximately 2,850 roles globally will be reduced during the year,” the report reads.

The combined cuts mean Microsoft will cut 4,700 jobs worldwide by the end of its fiscal year 2017. In June 2015, Microsoft announced it was laying off 7,800 people from the smartphone portion of its business. That gives a total of 12,500 job cuts in less than two years.

That doesn’t look too healthy for Windows Phone, but the writing has been on the wall for a while. As our editorial director Ian Betteridge wrote back in January, “there’s just no room for a strong third contender.”