Kyocera to Cut Jobs at Mobile Phone Unit, Move Production May 9, 2005

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Kyocera Corp., a Japanese consumer electronics maker, announced plans to eliminate 1,700 jobs at its mobile phone business in the U.S. and Mexico and shifts output to Singapore-based Flextronics International Ltd. in order to reduce costs.

The company will move handset output for the North American market to Flextronics, Chikako Morioka, a Kyocera spokeswoman, said without giving details on production targets or timing. Kyocera now has about 60,000 employees worldwide, she said.

The Kyoto-based company, which bought the North American unit from Qualcomm Inc. in 2000, moved production to Mexico in January 2005 to stem losses.

Kyocera said it plans to raise mobile phone production to 15 million units a year and make the business profitable in the year ending March 2006. The mobile-phone business had a 14.9 billion yen (approx. U.S. $142 million) pre-tax loss in 2004. (Bloomberg)

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