Japanese giant-of-old has another go at making it overseas.
Nikkei has reported that Panasonic is trying to strike a deal with a major telco in Europe to bring Android handsets) to the continent.
It says that Panasonic is mulling whether to make them itself of outsource production to another company.
The company sold 4.4 million phones last year domestically, but it aims to sell 7.5 million units by 2015 through global expansion.
If Panasonic does come back, it won't be the first Asian OEM to try. But the runes aren't good.
Although the handset market was full of Asian firms in the early noughts, most withdrew in the last five years. Since then Toshiba, Acer, Hyundai and Sanyo have all tried and failed to crack the Europe market.
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But now that iPhone and Android are opening up the traditionally closed handset market in Japan, maybe now's the time for the Japanese to broaden their horizons.
How they differentiate themselves from HTC, Samsung, LG and – more intriguingly – Huawei and ZTE? Well, there's the question.
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I would have to believe that in order for Panasonic to really penetrate the smartphone market they would have to create a spectacular phone that really differentiates itself from the competition who has been around for a very long time with more reach and influence. For example, I would have to imagine Panasonic creating a smartphone that works well while also having an amazing picture quality when snapping photos. Panasonic definitely has the influence, funds, and technology to do it, they would just have to market it correctly and make a solid product that once again, differentiates themselves to give users a reason to switch over.
Glen Suh
www.tapit.com
Glen Suh Nov 29th 2011 at 10:29PM
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