AsiaInfo European cull begins with UK workforce

AsiaInfo has begun work on scaling back its European operations, and Telecoms.com understands the vast majority of its UK workforce has been laid off.

Back in November, Telecoms.com broke the news of AsiaInfo planning a downsizing of its European marketing and sales functions. At the time, the Chinese BSS specialist, which has been aiming to compete with incumbent suppliers in Europe during the past few years, exclusively told us it would be “laying off a relatively small number of staff from our European sales & marketing organisations,” without explaining the justification for doing so.

Earlier in 2015 the organisation announced bold new growth plans for the region, which started in Hungary with a BSS transformation project for Telenor. The project involved the creation of a new operations centre with AsiaInfo having designs on employing 200 new staff in Europe by 2017.

Those plans have been firmly laid to rest, with Telecoms.com learning of departures from its UK office. Most notably, the majority of the UK marketing and sales team have either already left are soon to be let go.

The extent of the job cuts is yet to be confirmed by AsiaInfo as it waits on publicising future plans but it is believed a significant percentage of sales and marketing functions in Europe continue to be at risk, following the significant downscale of its UK operations.

With the company previously stating its intentions to “move away from direct sales and marketing,” it is likely that any future in Europe for AsiaInfo will come through technology partnerships with systems integration specialists and tech consultancies.