French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel said today that it was shutting production of mobile phones at its French factories for two weeks to combat swelling inventory levels.
An Alcatel spokeswoman said the company had shut down its two handset factories at Illkirch in Alsace and Laval in Mayenne for the current week and would halt output for a second week in April.
Alcatel's Illkirch and Mayenne plants employ 800 and 700 people respectively.
A slowdown in mobile phone sales in recent months has created a global stockpile of some 40 million handsets, according to industry experts. Half of that volume was with telecoms operators and phone distributors and the other half with handset makers.