Although you may have rarely heard of it, Japan’s Kyocera has actually been making cell phones since 1989. Today, Kyocera announced that it is officially exiting the consumer-oriented cell phone business (it will continue to provide services to corporate customers).
The company lost 2.27 billion yen (currently about RMB 116 million) in February of this year. The company also realized they had to take some steps, and that step was apparently to cut back on marginal consumer-grade products.
“We could no longer find a market for the masses,” said Kyocera President Hideo Tanimoto. In fact, even in its home market in Japan, the company is having a hard time competing with Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi and OPPO, as well as other Japanese brands like Sharp and Sony.
