Mitsubishi Exits Mobile Handset Business

Electronics company Mitsubishi Electric has announced plans to exit the mobile handset business to shift resources to its communications infrastructure business.

Mitsubishi started supplying car phones in 1983 to NTT, now NTT DoCoMo, but said the domestic mobile phone market in Japan is saturated with little growth in demand. It said it plans to strengthen its communications infrastructure arm that develops next-generation network (NGN) equipment, base transceiver stations for mobile phones, and closed circuit televisions. It will also focus on its car multimedia products, factory automation systems, and train information management systems.

It said it will continue to offer after-sales-service for its handsets, and said Diamondtelecom, its mobile phone sales subsidiary, will continue to operate.

The handset business has approximately 600 employees, who Mitsubishi said will be redeployed to other areas of the company. It said the closure of the division will cause a loss of approximately 17bn yen (4164m) in fiscal 2008.