MOBILE phone giant Sony Ericsson is to shed 2,000 jobs – after ringing up first quarter losses totalling £316m.

The company, which has been hit by falling demand, said the cuts would come as part of a £353m cost-saving plan.

The latest move comes on top of another recent round of 2,000 job losses as the firm looks to save money.

Sony Ericsson refused to say where the latest cuts would fall. It employs about 250 staff in the UK at sites in west London and Farnborough, Hampshire.

President Dick Komiyama said: “The first quarter of this year has been extremely challenging for Sony Ericsson due to continued weak global demand.

“We are aligning our business to the new market reality with the aim of bringing the company back to profitability as quickly as possible.”

Sony Ericsson saw first-quarter sales slump by more than a third compared with last year as retailers cleared stock and consumer confidence was battered by the recession.

The group shipped 14.5m phones in the first three months of 2009 – some 35% below 12 months earlier.

Overall revenues fell by 36% at £1.54bn and margins were hit by factors such as a stronger euro and a shift in product mix towards cheaper phones.

The company also lost market share in the first quarter, down by 2% to 6% compared with the final three months of 2008.

Sony Ericsson is gloomy about prospects for the rest of the year. It forecasts that the global handset market for 2009 will contract at least 10%.

The business was set up as a joint venture between Japan’s Sony and Sweden’s Ericsson in 2001 and has operations in more than 80 countries,.