EMC plans more job cuts amid restructure
Storage giant's sales soar but fall short of analyst expectations
EMC has anounced a restructuring plan which will see the firm's headcount reduced this quarter as it posted worse-than-expected revenue for its last fiscal year.
In an 8-K filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Comission, EMC said it had approved a plan to reduce its workforce in the coming quarter, a move which would cost it between $100m (£61m) and $120m. It did not confirm in the filing exactly how many staff were set to go, but local press report the number could be around 1,000 - similar to the number of heads cut last year in a comparable move.
The firm's chief operating officer David Goulden played down the restructure on a call, transcribed by Seeking Alpha, and said in last year's restructure, the firm ended up with more staff at the end of the year compared with the start.
"Just think of it as rebalancing rather than a year restructuring," he said.
The news broke as EMC reported worse-than-expected revenue for last year. For 2013 its sales rose seven per cent annually to $23.2bn, short of analysts' expectations of $24.96bn. Net income for the year was up six per cent year on year, reaching $2.9bn.
EMC enjoyed a strong end to 2013 with net profit attributable to EMC in Q4 - which ended on 31 December - up 17 per cent annually to $1bn. Sales for the quarter were up 11 per cent to $6.68bn, driven by strong EMEA growth. The region's revenue jumped 15 per cent to $1.94bn, making it EMC's fastest-growing geography for the quarter.
The storage giant's chief executive Joe Tucci said its Q4 performance is indicative of the firm being on the right track.
"There's no doubt that the move from the second platform to the third platform of IT - underpinned by the mega trends of mobile, cloud, big data and social - is having a profound impact on business and transforming the way we work and live," he said.
"Customers and partners have these transformations in their sights and are embracing EMC's vision, strategy and best-of-breed portfolio to capitalise on them.
"Our fourth-quarter results are further evidence that our federation strategy across EMC Information Infrastructure, VMware and Pivotal is on target."