Camera Phones Plaza

Even if there are still many companies that brag about the fact that the economic crisis the world is going through these days doesn’t affect them whatsoever, and that no matter how strong it will be in the future, they will prove themselves to be prepared to fight it back, it seems that as the days are passing by, they are practically obliged to admit that the problem is more serious than expected.

How many of you would have thought that the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia, will ever be in the position of stop selling its handsets in Japan, one of the most important and largest markets in the world, as far as the gadgets realm is concerned? Still, there’s an exception: the luxury Vertu brand.



According to a report by Reuters, the Finnish phone maker announced that the decision is already made: they will stop manufacturing cell phones for NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile, except the luxury Vertu brand. This seems something like a science-fiction movie, isn’t it? Not to mention the fact that, unfortunately for Nokia, Japan is the world’s forth largest mobile phone market, competing with other powerful countries, as far as the sales are concerned, such as United States, China and India.



Rumors say that Nokia didn’t succeed in the Japanese market due to the severe competition, which consists of more sophisticated Japanese devices. Just think about it: more than 85 percent of the population already has a mobile phone. Not to mention the fact that most of the handsets used in this country are part of something that you can easily describe as “third-generation networks”. It’s easy to understand why this is a really difficult task for foreign manufacturers to accomplish.

The reason was rapidly given by Nokia executive vice president Timo Ihamuotila, who said in a statement that “in the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific localized products is no longer sustainable”. Well, this is something many of us wouldn’t have expected it.



In addition, he said that Nokia will further focus is business in Japan on research, development and sourcing for the global market and that another important aspect will be specific projects like the Vertu brand.

Analyst Michito Kimura, from IDC Japan, a research firm, said that “Nokia is facing global earnings problems and many other issues, and this shows Japan was a low-priority market at a time when they are shoring up global operations, even though it may still be attractive”. Even if this guy doesn’t seem very surprised, well, NTT DoCoMo and Softbank surely are, as they were selling Nokia devices up until now.

(Source: Reuters)