Fujitsu Ltd. will announce later today its plans for a wide restructuring of its business after it previously said expects to a report group net loss of 220 billion yen (US$1.8 billion) for the current financial year.
Details will be unveiled at a news conference later today.
Company officials were keeping tight-lipped on the details of the announcement Monday morning however local media were reporting what they said were some of the details. The restructuring will include the laying off of around 15,000 workers, according to a report in the Sunday morning edition of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, while the Asahi Shimbun reported the number could be as high at 16,000.
The job cuts, which represent around 10 per cent of the electronics maker’s global workforce, will mostly come in North America and Asia, said the Nikkei. Around 3,000 jobs are expected to be cut in Japan as a result of the plan which will see the company consolidate production of computers and telecommunication equipment, it said.
The company will announce an end to overseas manufacturing of semiconductors and data storage units for personal computers and switch U.S. production of telecommunication switches to fiber-optic products, according to the newspaper. The company will also announce plans to combine domestic semiconductor production lines, it said.
Several thousand production line workers will also be transferred to software and services divisions, said the newspaper. These divisions provided most of the few bright spots in Fujitsu’s first quarter earnings, announced in late July.
Some elements of the restructuring have already been announced. Earlier this month the company announced plans to end 3.5-inch IDE hard disk manufacturing in favor of more profitable 2.5-inch drives.
Fujitsu officials expect to report a net loss for the current year of 220 billion yen, against a net profit of 8.5 billion yen last year. Net sales are expected to slip from last year’s 5.5 trillion yen to 5.4 trillion yen this year.
Fujitsu, in Tokyo, is at http://www.fujitsu.co.jp/.
