We have seen many previously leading brands fall by the wayside in the past few years in the mobile phone business. Very few businesses move at such a pace and this pace is nowhere more obvious than in the design and development of the mobile phone.
At the forefront of the development of the mobile phone and related services was Japan. Japan has a system of three main network operators with manufacturers supplying devices that are locked to each carrier. This infrastructure led to a different development of the mobile phone market than in other regions. The individual carriers developed their own mobile net infrastructures but had the same suppliers providing very similar looking and functioning hand sets. This led to a situation where a customer would only be able to choose a handset provided by their network with very little network mobility.
NTT Docomo were the first on the scene with the iMode service that promised a lot. Unfortunately the iMode system failed to gain popularity overseas and has stayed a domestic success only.
Then along came the iPhone, which was originally released on one network only, but was shortly extended to all of the big three networks. The iPhone was so different from the devices that the Japanese manufacturers were producing and the customers bought iPhones in their millions, leaving Japanese manufacturers such as Panasonic dead in the water.
It is amazing how a company such as Panasonic could bow out of the smart phone market when it was such a leading player in Japan up until very recently, but that is what the company has just announced.
