World’s largest mobile phone maker Nokia has announced on Thursday that it would be quitting from Japanese markets after struggling to obtain any significant market share in the country.
However, the Finnish mobile phone giant asserted that it would continue selling its Vertu luxury phones in Japan, and its research and development programs along with sourcing operations would also continue in Japan.
Reasoning the company’s exit from Japanese markets, Nokia’s exec VP, Timo Ihamuotila said in a statement, “In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific product variants is no longer sustainable”.
Despite enjoying the largest market share globally, which currently sits around 40 percent the company has struggled considerably to achieve the expected growth in Japanese markets, with dismal 0.3 percent market share, and hence decided to finally pull out from it.
In addition, both LG and Samsung have also faced difficulty in striking proper growth in Japanese markets, which is currently under the influence of sophisticated domestic phones.
The under-performance of some of the globally renowned players in mobile phone segment, like Nokia and Samsung, in Japan is largely attributed to a number of local companies manufacturing handsets with a bunch of advanced features including, electronic payment functions and TV broadcasting.
Foreign companies account for only 5 percent of the total share in mobile phone market in Japanese markets, the research firm IDC Japan claimed.
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