Siemens is to cut an estimated 6,800 jobs at its corporate telecommunications unit, having received no bids for the business in the two years it has been up for sale.

The decision to sell the enterprise network division was made following the announcement of Siemens merger with Nokia’s telecoms equipment division in 2006.

The Siemens division posted sales down nine per cent and losses of E602m (£454m) in the last financial year. It blamed the drop on corporate customers switching to web-based telephony.

Siemens share price rose by 2.8 per cent following news of the job cuts.