Freescale laying off to keep up with changing market

“We conducted a thorough and extensive review of all our businesses, markets and regions during my first three months,” said Lowe. “We gathered input from a number of internal and external sources with the objective of identifying our true differentiators and the markets where they would make us a leading force.” “Our goal was to identify areas where we can reinforce our strengths to drive top line growth and margin expansion, then reallocate our R&D resources toward those areas of high-value and high-growth,” said Lowe. Changes ahead Freescale will shift its research and development investment to focus on specific product groups. The focus on these product groups will drive the company’s investment and will account for nearly 90 percent of total research and development spending by 2015. The company will also begin shifting sales resources to align with industry growth in China and select opportunities in Korea, Taiwan and Japan. As a result, the company expects to increase the number of accounts covered and expand its presence in distribution. “By reallocating our investments and focusing our efforts on high growth markets, we intend to expand on our leadership positions and accelerate our market share gain,” said Lowe. “Combine that with our talented team of dedicated professionals and I am confident we can grow Freescale to be a truly great company.” Layoffs ahead In connection with re-allocating research and development expenses and re-distributing sales resources, Freescale estimates cash charges of approximately $35 million to $40 million. The charges relate to severance costs and the company expects the timing of the cash charges to occur primarily through the third quarter of 2013. Freescale did not disclose the number of employees affected.