Toshiba Exits China Cellphone Market
Japan’s Toshiba Corp. said on Monday it had sold its 33 percent stake in a mobile phone joint venture in China to a local partner, withdrawing from a highly competitive market with hefty growth potential. Toshiba, Japan’s second-largest electronics conglomerate, set up the venture with Nanjing Putian and another company in Hong Kong in 2000 to make and sell Toshiba handsets in China.
But a slower-than-expected take-off in high-end mobile phones there led to the withdrawal, said a Toshiba spokesman, who admitted that the company’s presence in China’s mobile phone market had been quite small. Toshiba sold its entire stake to Nanjing Putian earlier this year. The spokesman declined to comment on details of the transaction including the sale price. He added that this did not mean the company had left the Chinese market for good, and it would consider an appropriate timing for re-entry. Continue >>