Fujitsu and Toshiba Follows the Footsteps of NEC Casio Mobile
Japan’s version of the Wall Street Journal, “Nikkei”, has revealed an interesting tidbit about two of Japan’s most prominent mobile phone manufacturers.
Toshiba and Fujitsu are now under negotiations in order to make a merger happen within the year. Apparently, the talks are now in the final stage and are about to be sealed by both companies.
You may remember another Japanese mobile phone maker that is also under a deal to merge their mobile phone operations. These include NEC, Hitachi and Casio, forming a sole mobile phone company called “NEC Casio Mobile” collectively.
This can probably be attributed to the fact that Japanese mobile phone companies getting less and less influence, even in their once dominated home market. The move is definitely strategic. Not only will a merger save money in terms of lesser production costs, it will also unify mobile phone technology development and let these companies share their strengths in order to better compete with their foreign competition.
In their home country, the pair is almost guaranteed to succeed. Fujitsu and Toshiba combined will garner a total of 18.7% in terms of the market share. That will make them the second largest in their domestic market after Sharp’s 26.1%. This may be attributed to Fujitsu’s strong market pull, being the third most popular mobile phone brand in Japan.
Compared to Korean mobile phone makers like Samsung and LG, Finnish Nokia and of, course, American-based Apple, the Japanese mobile phone makers have yet to make themselves a household brand in terms of the international market.
The move may help both companies tap into the international market since the first Japanese merger, NEC Casio Mobile, has already announced their plans to do so. All this may just indicate that we will see Japanese mobile phones get their groove on in other countries.
