Microsoft To Release Six Smartphones A Year, Starting in 2016

The mobile phone business of Microsoft is fast evolving. In a bid to streamline its mobile phone business, the CEO of Redmond, Washington-based giant, Satya Nadella has announced it will be sacking 7,800 employees, mainly from the smartphone hardware business segment.

According to Nadella, the company will be releasing three kinds of mobile phones -- value handsets, business handsets and flagship devices. The company wants to release at least one or two handsets a year in each category. It indicates that Microsoft will launch not more than six Lumia handsets each year, reports Bloomberg.

Since Nadella became the CEO, this week's axing of 7,800 jobs is the second instance of mass layoffs. In 2014, after acquiring the mobile division from Nokia in the previous year, Microsoft laid off 18,000 Nokia employees.

So far this year, Microsoft has already released six smartphones, mainly including midrangers like the Lumia 640, the Lumia 640 XL, the Lumia 532 and more. It does not mean that Microsoft will be releasing other devices this year.

The new business strategy of releasing six smartphones will start next year. However, in this year, Microsoft is heavily rumored to launch the Lumia 940 and the Lumia 940 XL smarpthones with Windows 10 Mobile on onboard.

As of this writing, Microsoft has not released any official information on the Lumia 940 and the 940 XL. However, as per the GSM Arena listing on the device, the Lumia 940 model is expected to house a 5.2-inch display that supports Quad HD resolution of 1440 x 2560 pixels. It will be powered by a Snapdragon 808 chipset that is supported by 3 GB of RAM.

The native storage of the device will be 32 GB. It will house a 20 MP primary camera and a 5 MP rear camera. It will also feature the USB Type-C connector and a battery of 3000 mAh capacity.

The Lumia 940 XL listing on GSM Arena claims it will be a phablet device with 5.7-inch Quad HD display. It will come loaded with a Snapdragon 810 chipset and 3 GB of RAM. The internal storage of the handset will be 32 GB.

The main camera of the device will be of 20 MP and it will feature a selfie camera of 5 MP. It will be equipped with a bigger battery of 3,300 mAh capacity.