SonyEricsson appointed Hideki Komiyama its new top executive as Miles Flint has decided to step down from the post. Flint, who became president in 2004 and guided the venture to profitability, will remain executive adviser to Komiyama until the end of the year. Komiyama, currently chairman of Sony Electronics, will move into the new job on Nov. 1.
Fujitsu announced it has decided to spin off its shared technology and design divisions and convert them, as of October 1, 2007, into two newly established corporations, Fujitsu Advanced Technologies Limited and Fujitsu Design Limited. Fujitsu is making its broad operational expertise and experience available to customers through the provision of business process outsourcing (BPO) services. Now, in conjunction with this approach, Fujitsu is separating into independent subsidiaries its shared technology and design divisions.
SoftBank Mobile issued a press release this week [in Japanese], announcing that the carriers official Yahoo! mobile portal has added a mobile social networking category to the top level menu. The four sites included — effective immediately — are; MySpace Mobile, Mixi Mobile, GREE and Avex.
Sanyo has decided to sell its mobile phone business as part of its effort to improve group-wide profitability, with an agreement expected by the end of the year, according to a web report on Saturday by public broadcaster NHK. Sanyo is said to be negotiating separately with Sharp and Kyocera according to this article on The Japan Times. The exit rumor surfaced late last year.
Dowa-Eco is planning to import used mobile phones from Southeast Asia to extract nonferrous metals such as gold and copper from them for recycling, according to the Daily Yomiuri. The Dowa group has the only smelter in Asia capable of extracting individual metals from ores such as copper, gold and lead which are needed for making substrates used in mobile phones.
AP is reporting, via Yahoo, that NEC Corp. said Tuesday its profit in the April-June period more than tripled, helped by turnaround efforts in its overseas mobile phone operations. Profit at the Tokyo-based electronics manufacturer totalled 973 million yen (US$8.2 million) for the three months ended June 30, up dramatically from 261 million yen the same period the previous year.
