Nokia to close nearly all sites in mainland China by year-end

Nokia is shutting down almost every operation it runs in mainland China before December 31, a dramatic exit from a market that generated billions in revenue less than a decade ago. The restructuring will affect the vast majority of the company’s roughly 7,200 employees in Greater China. The move became public after an internal announcement on August 13 revealed that Nokia’s Hangzhou R&D facility, focused on radio technology, would close by year-end. That single site accounts for approximately 1,600 jobs. But the Hangzhou shutdown is just one piece of a much larger retreat that spans Nokia’s mobile networks and network infrastructure segments, with staged layoffs planned through the rest of 2026. A market that evaporated The numbers tell a brutal story. Nokia’s Greater China revenues fell from roughly €2.2 billion in 2018 to €913 million in 2025. That’s a decline of more than 58%. The company’s market share in China now sits below 3%. Nokia has framed the closures as a natural consequence of sustained business decline and the need to align its China operations with its global model. The company completed full ownership of its Nokia Shanghai Bell joint venture by the end of 2025,...