Microsoft takes another Nokia hit: cuts 1,850 jobs and writes off another $950m

Microsoft's mobile efforts seemingly "streamlined" into oblivion

Microsoft is to "streamline" its smartphone business yet again, with the cutting of another 1,850 jobs, mostly at the company's Mobile division in Espoo, Finland. The company is also writing off another $950m in value from its $7.2bn, 2013 acquisition of the mobile phone division of Nokia.

The new cuts come as some in the industry suggest that Microsoft's smartphone business is fast disappearing - especially following the news that Windows Phone now accounts for just 0.7 per cent of the mobile operating system market.

Microsoft's smartphone business has gurgled rapidly down the pan over the past year following the botched shift to Windows Phone 10. CEO Satya Nadella has reversed the strategy of producing good value, low-cost handsets in a bid to drive market share gains.

That justified job cuts of up to 7,800 last year, a move that has only led to further falls in sales. Microsoft said in a statement that this will result in the cutting of up to 1,350 jobs at Microsoft Mobile Oy in Finland, as well as up to another 500 globally.

News agency Reuters reported earlier that Microsoft planned to stop designing and manufacturing mobile phones altogether, although this would indicate a dramatic change of direction for the company, which has until lately pushed 'cloud first, mobile first' as a core strategy based on Windows 10 being able to run across a wide variety of devices.

"We are focusing our phone efforts where we have differentiation - with enterprises that value security, manageability and our Continuum capability, and consumers who value the same. We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms," Nadella said in a statement regarding the latest job cuts.

Speculation still surrounds a potential Surface Phone device that Microsoft is said to be developing to replace its ailing Windows Phones and replicate the success of the Surface tablet systems.

However, the upcoming Atom-based Broxton and Sofia chips that were likely to power such a device were cancelled by Intel at the start of this month, making it unclear whether such a device is still viable.