Gionee, the Chinese smartphone brand which ranks just behind Apple in handset sales in China, has cut its factory workforce by half amid financial woes triggered by an expensive marketing war with deep-pocketed rivals.
The Shenzhen based company has begun laying off workers at its main manufacturing plant in Dongguan, Guangdong province, with only about half of the previous staff retained to continue normal operations of product lines, Gionee said in a statement on its official Weibo account on Monday night.