NEC looks to cut 10,000 mainly mobile jobs on the back of predicted $1.3 billion loss

IT giant NEC appears to be a major casualty of the Japanese market's shift towards smartphones, with falling feature phone sales causing the company to project net losses of $1.3 billion in 2011.

Such a figure would represent NEC's third annual loss in four years, with the company likely to cut 8.6 percent of its workforce around 10,000 jobs in response.

The challenge ahead

NEC describes current business conditions as "challenging" in its revised forecast, with the company cutting its projected revenues for the year ending 31 March by around $2 billion to an estimated $40.4 billion.

The firm claims this is due, in part, to a "decrease in sales from a decline in mobile phone shipments".

As a result, NEC's previous projection of a $196 million net profit for the period has been scrapped.

Bloomberg reports commentators are urging NEC to pull back from extraneous markets - such a mobile - to focus on the areas of its business where it remains strong.

As such, as many as 7,000 jobs could go from NEC's operations in Japan as early as March mainly from its mobile operations - with a further 3,000 being pulled from overseas.

[source: NEC]