Texas Instruments Laying Off 1,700 Workers, Shifting Focus Away from Mobile

At a time when consumers are trending towards mobile products like smartphones and tablets, Texas Instruments has decided it can flip a bigger profit by focusing its energies elsewhere. As such. TI is planning to slash 1,700 jobs as it scales back its mobile processor business and transitions to other areas, like cars and smartphones.

The planned layoffs add up to almost 5 percent of TI's global workforce and are part of a broader cost-reduction effort.

"We have a great opportunity to reshape our OMAP processor and wireless connectivity product lines to concentrate on embedded markets. Momentum is already building with new embedded applications and a broad set of customers, and we are accelerating our efforts in these areas," said Greg Delagi, senior vice president of Embedded Processing. "These job reductions are something we do with a heavy heart because they impact people we care deeply about. We will work closely with all employees affected by these changes to provide a range of assistance related to compensation, benefits and job search."


TI expects its efforts to result in annualized savings of $450 million by the end of 2013, along with a $325 million charge, most of which will be accounted for in the current quarter, the company said.

The mobile market will still be well served by the likes of Samsung, Qualcomm, and NVIDIA. AMD and Intel are also trying to make a dent in mobile. As for TI, it will continue to support existing customers, including Amazon with its Kindle Fire family.