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One week after Microsoft ( MSFT ) sold its low-end feature phone business, the company on Wednesday announced plans to streamline its remaining smartphone business and take a $950 million impairment and restructuring charge. Microsoft expects to cut up to 1,850 jobs as part of the realignment. It will record the financial charge in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ends June 30. “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,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement . “We will continue to innovate across devices and on our cloud services across all mobile platforms.” Microsoft acquired the feature phone and smartphone businesses from Nokia ( NOK ) for $7.5 billion in April 2014. Microsoft wrote off the entire value of the deal in July 2015 when it recorded an impairment charge of $7.6 billion related to the Nokia assets. At the time, it also laid off 7,800 workers from those operations. On May 18, Microsoft announced it is selling its entry-level feature phone business for $350 million to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based contract manufacturer Foxconn, and HMD Global, a newly created company in Finland that has licensed Nokia’s brand and intellectual property. Microsoft has had a tough time competing in the mobile phone market against Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) iPhone and handsets using the Android operating system from Alphabet ‘s ( GOOGL ) Google. Microsoft’s Windows phones accounted for less than 1% of smartphone sales to end users worldwide in the first quarter, research firm Gartner said. Microsoft shares rose 1% to 52.12 on the stock market today . RELATED: Microsoft Stock Oversold, Gets Upgrade On Cloud Prospects Scalper1 News
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