Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone maker, announced it would stop selling and marketing its handsets in Japan because the market share remained flat over too many years (hovering at around 1% vs. around 38% worldwide).
One of Nokia’s vice presidents said: “In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific product variants is no longer sustainable.” They are right. Now is the right time to pull out of Japan without losing too much face.
And Nokia is very successful in China and India so they might not need the Japanese market at all (the plan to enter Nippon with their Vertu brand will not be abandoned). The company sold 38.5 million handsets in China in the first six months of this year alone.
Listen, I don’t know why Nokia phones aren’t popular in Japan, but the graphic is pretty interesting – anyway, what do they buy in Japan … if it ain’t Nokia?
Sharp and Panasonic are leading the market over here. Also, there is NEC and Toshiba.
Nokia is the world’s leading mobile phone maker and stop selling and marketing its handsets to japan because the market share was down over too many years. Nokia will create its own cellphone service in Japan, piggybacking on NTT Docomo’s infrastructure there.It’s scheduled to launch in the springtime. Nokia is expected to use the service to market its high-end phones, presumably including its N96. Nokia is very successful in China and India so they might not need the Japanese.