Broadcom has announced it is winding down its cellular baseband unit, at a cost of 2,250 jobs, after failing to find a buyer for the business.
The vendor will focus on the likes of its small cell, wearables and Wi-Fi businesses. Broadcom President and CEO Scott McGregor said: “We made the decision to pursue a wind down, which minimises the ongoing losses from the business, and enables us to focus on our core strengths that much more quickly. We begun to implement our exit and expect ongoing customer commitments to decline over the remainder of the year.”
As part of the changes, 2,250 staff will lose their jobs, in addition to 250 admin staff, and 18 premises will be closed or consolidated into nearby locations.
The job cuts amount to around a fifth of Broadcom’s total workforce. These changes are expected to cost the business more than €300 million.
McGregor added: “Looking forward, we have a renewed focus on the Broadband, Connectivity and Infrastructure markets…Broadcom will be a stronger company, as we focus on our core businesses.”
The vendor made the announcement as part of its second quarter results. Sales were down 2.3 percent to €1.51 billion, with it cutting its losses from €186 million a year ago to €742,000.
Qualcomm is the dominant player in the cellular baseband processor market, with it accounting for almost two in every three sales made. According to research from Strategy Analytics, Mediatek (12 percent) and Intel (eight percent) were the second and third biggest vendors respectively.
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