Cell Phone Industry Archive

  • Report: Fujitsu and Toshiba to merge cell phone operations

    Report: Fujitsu and Toshiba to merge cell phone operations

    Posted on June 11, 2010 | No Comments
    Big news from the Japanese cell phone industry today: Two of Japan's top handset makers, namely Fujitsu and Toshiba, are in talks to merge their cell phone operations within this year. According to the Nikkei ("Japan's Wall Street Journal" and usually a reliable source), negotiations already reached the "final stage". The joint venture, if it happens, will create Japan's second largest cell phone maker (with a combined 18.7% domestic market share), following Sharp (26.1%). Fujitsu (the current No. 3 among Japan's handset makers with over 5 million handsets shipped in 2009) is expected to become the main stakeholder in the joint venture. Toshiba is the eighth biggest (1.28 million units).

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  • Japanese cell phones for the world: NEC and Panasonic plot new overseas sales plans

    Japanese cell phones for the world: NEC and Panasonic plot new overseas sales plans

    Posted on July 6, 2009 | No Comments
    Japan, the world's second largest economy with the third biggest Internet population, and the many, many early adopters of technology inhabiting this nation could be heaven for the domestic cell phone industry. And it was for years, until sales started slowing dangerously (minus 30% last fiscal year), and the overall population is poised to shrink and age dramatically in the future. These two developments made a handful of Japanese cell phone makers think about moving away from creating all those fancy Nippon-only phones they've been producing for years. Now NEC and Panasonic seem to be finally ready to export some models - as early as next fiscal year, according to Japan's biggest business newspaper Nikkei.

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