Mitsubishi Quits Cell Phone Business

Although its handsets are rarely seen outside Japan, longtime mobile phone maker Mitsubishi is getting out of the handset business.

It’s no secret that competing with the Nokia’s, Motorola’s, LGs, and Samsung’s of the world is no easy feat, but it’s always a little sad when another long-time player calls it quits. Today, Mitsubishi announced it is getting out of the mobile handset business after nearly 25 years. Although the company’s handsets are rarely seen outside of Japan (where they’ve been a longtime supplier to NTT DoCoMo), they got started with car phones all the way back in 1983.

The company cites limited growth potential in Japan’s domestic phone market as the reason for the shutdown, with diverging preferences of phone users leading to “severe” business conditions. Instead, the company plans to focus its energies on developing communications infrastructure such as CCTV, mobile phone receiver stations, in-vehicle multimedia, train management systems, and other businesses.

Although Mitsubishi plans to continue to offer batteries and after-sales service for its existing phones, models currently for sale represent the end of the line: Mitsubishi plans to kill off phone models currently in development. Mitsubishi’s mobile handset business employs about 600 people, who will “basically” be shifted to other positions within Mitsubishi Electric’s larger business.

Mitsubishi says it expects to sell a total of about 2.1 million handsets from April 2007 through March 2008.