Mobile phone giant Nokia said on Friday it will axe 330 people from its research and development staff in Finland and Denmark.

The planned changes are expected to affect up to 230 employees at Nokia's Oulu site in Finland and approximately 100 employees at Nokia's Copenhagen site, the world's biggest mobile phone maker said in a statement.

Nokia said it would support the impacted employees with possible new positions within the company and could offer voluntary redundancy packages for them.

The Finnish company has more than 17,000 employees in research and development, of whom over 2,000 are in Oulu and over 1,000 are in Copenhagen.

Nokia launched a cost-cutting program last January after its earnings fell as consumers cut back on buying handsets amid the economic downturn, aiming to generate over $1 billion in annual savings.

Nokia has cut about 3,700 jobs since January, including around 1,300 voluntary redundancy packages.

Nokia's announcement came following Sony Ericsson's decision to move its North American headquarters from North Carolina to Atlanta and close a half-dozen sites worldwide.

The site closures are part of a plan announced in April to cut 20 percent of 10,000 staff worldwide at the joint venture between Sweden's LM Ericsson and Japan's Sony Corp, the company's spokeswoman Stacy Doster said on Wednesday.

Doster said 400 jobs have been cut by now with 1,600 more to be done by the middle of next year.

The company chose Atlanta as the headquarter because it's near to AT&T Inc, one of the company's biggest customers, Doster said. Atlanta is also a gateway into Latin America because of its international connections through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, she added.

Electronics Sony