Ericsson cuts China headcount but says it won't quit the market
Despite cutting its R&D workforce in the country, Ericsson is unlikely to give up its extremely stable China business.
Ericsson has cut its R&D headcount in China – but it's not joining the queue for the China exit, despite reports to the contrary.
The company won't give any details of the job cuts, but said in an emailed statement "we continually make normal business adjustments and are diversifying our core network engineering R&D footprint in alignment to sales."
An Ericsson staffer at the company's Shanghai office confirmed the layoffs to 21st Century Business Herald, although he also offered no specifics of how many jobs were being cut.
The news sparked a series of "Huawei's biggest rival is leaving China" headlines - a favorite local trope about foreign companies unable to compete with Huawei. Ericsson denied it had any plans to leave, and in fact it has good reason to stay where it is.
But there's no shortage of foreign companies that are voting with their feet.