Mitsubishi Mobile is hara-kiri. The subsidiary of the giant Japanese officially announces that it will cease to produce and develop mobile phones. Only after-sales service will be provided.

After Sanyo (which sold its mobile Kyocera), Mitsubishi Electric is the second Japanese industrial giant to throw in the towel on this market. It must be said that in an industry increasingly competitive as the first three players (Nokia, Samsung, Motorola) share more than 80% of the market, smaller manufacturers are having difficulties in maintaining the lead in the water.

"It has become difficult, these days, to provide the slightest increase in demand on the domestic market of mobile phones, which is already mature, the growing diversification of customer preferences have created a hostile business environment. Activity mobile phones Mitsubishi Electric has recently seen its deliveries decline and it has become extremely difficult to predict an improvement in this area, "explains Mistubishi Electric.

Recall that the manufacturer was delivering a very large portion of its handsets in Japan, NTT DoCoMo. Its presence in the rest of the world was anecdotal. This activity has generated as forecasted by the 2007-2008 fiscal year, a turnover of 625 million euros (2.1 million mobiles sold).

Mitsubishi nevertheless that the resources of his division (600 people) will now be assigned to activities telecommunications equipment and next-generation systems, industrial automation, multimedia devices for automotive, closed-circuit television and other infrastructure related to security . No social plan has been announced yet.