Panasonic bows out of Japanese smartphone market

Thursday, 5^th September 2013 08:04 BST (Europe/London)
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Panasonic said it is to stop selling smartphones to consumers in its home market Japan. It said it would also begin outsourcing production of mobiles sold to India and other countries. The news had been expected after Japan's largest network said it would stop promoting the firm's devices. NTT Docomo said it would instead focus its marketing efforts on phones from Sony and Samsung.

Panasonic said its mobile division had been set to make another loss. The firm's president, Kazuhiro Tsuga, told Reuters the division was likely to lose more than the 1.1bn yen (