“It’s official: Japanese technology company NEC Corp. says adios to the smartphone business,” Hiroyuki Kachi reports for The Wall Street Journal.
MacDailyNews Take: More like sayonara. Sayonara, NEC!
“The Japanese computer maker and provider of technology services said it will discontinue development, production and sales of smartphones effective immediately, other than the model already on the market,” Kachi reports. “It will continue development and production of conventional mobile phones and tablets. ‘We were late to enter the smartphone market, and we were unable to develop attractive products. That’s what it comes down to,’ Chief Financial Officer Isamu Kawashima said at a press conference.”
Kachi reports, “NEC merged its cellphone operations with those of Casio Computer Co. and Hitachi Ltd. in 2010 to create NEC Casio Mobile Communications. The three firms pooled their resources to embark on a major campaign to regain ground in the mobile-phone market. But the business has failed to rise to the challenge of stiff competition from rival products such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bloodbath.
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More blood on Apple iPhone’s and iPad’s touchscreens: HP discontinues webOS phones, tablets – August 18, 2011
More blood on Apple iPhone’s Multi-Touch™ screen: Garmin exits smartphone biz – October 27, 2010
More blood on Apple iPhone’s Multi-Touch™ screen: Microsoft Kin is dead – June 30, 2010
More blood on Apple iPhone’s Multi-Touch™ screen: Smartphone & Pocket PC mag becomes iPhone Life – August 26, 2008
Apple’s iPhone has blood on its multi-touch screen: Palm kills Foleo on eve of launch – September 04, 2007
Again, it is not just the device that people are buying. It is the entire Apple ecosystem. The days of selling 1 item and hoping others will fill in all the missing pieces that are demanded by today’s users are long gone. (Ex: Microsoft Surface, Zune, …)
NEC praying at the church of Android: “Dear Lord, save us from the depradations of the smartphone industry, in particular, the godless Apple, for we are weak and getting weaker by the day. In time without your divine intervention, we shall leave this mortal coil.”
Google: “My chiild, I am a false god copied wholesale from Apple. I promise heaven but deliver hell.”
I’m sure Samsung’s shared dominance has nothing to do with NEC’s decision.
No, it was Samsung’s 5.8 billion dollar advertising campaign.
And you would be correct in that assumption.
Apple and Samesung earn almost all the smartphone profits.What a coincidence that the only other company to make a successful smartphone business is the one that decided to blatantly copy Apple and rely on our worthless courts to stall justice till it doesn’t matter. Seems like most of that money would have been Apple’s money, if the playing field were level.
They had smartphones?
+1 Exactly my thought.
“‘We were late to enter the smartphone market, and we were unable to develop attractive products. That’s what it comes down to,’
Doesn’t it come down to you not looking at the current situation and asking yourself, how can we make our product innovative, futuristic, sexy, cool and functional? You could have done that NEC, however, supposedly, your industry said “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” Ed Cooligan defunct Palm’s defunct CEO.
Nec who?
So, Samsung sells more phones than anyone this year and yet you think it was Apple that killed them?
This site and it’s users are becoming more delusional every day
Growth in mobile is all about lower end devices in emerging markets right now and until apples new cheaper plastic model comes out, they aren’t a player in that game.
Yes. Apple re wrote the rules with iphone but please, a little realism maybe
Yes, Apple killed them. First you need to remove all non-smartphones from your numbers. Now you look at the Samsung Smartphones and (if you’re honest) you will accept that they are photocopies of iOS.
If Sumsung’s OS look was unique to Samsung and NEC copied their look but came to the same conclusion to drop out then you can say it was because of Samsung.